Hopkinton Eighth-Grade Strings Plays MICCA

The Hopkinton Middle School 8th-Grade String Orchestra conducted by Fiona Fornwalt played at Hopkinton High School as part of the MICCA Festival early Saturday morning.

Their performance was superb, certainly not as polished as those of the high school orchestras, but a pleasure to hear.

The young musicians have been practicing singly and together since around Christmastime for this show.

They played 19th Century composer Giuseppe Verdi's Anvil Chorus in an arrangement by Andrew Dabczynski, a Professor of Music at Brigham Young University; Evening Prayer by Englebert Humperdinck (the late 19th Century c0mposer, not the 1970s pop singer); and Conquistador by Deborah Baker Monday, a youth orchestra director and contemporary composer of many pieces for strings.

MICCA gives students like these not only the chance to see other orchestras of the same age perform, and receive thoughtful and tailored critiques from experienced musicians and festival judges.

Richard Hoenich, the former Director of Orchestral Activities at the New England Conservatory and a former associate conductor and principal bassoon with the Montreal Symphony, offered some tips for the eighth-graders after they performed.

Hoenich first asked the students about timing, and why it might be hard to play slowly while other parts of the orchestra are playing fast.

Then he asked the students about dynamics, the loudness, softness and exagerration required during performance. 

"You've played these pieces hundreds of times," he said. "But the audience only hears them once."

He advised the students to try to listen to the other parts of the orchestra while they are playing, and to make their soft sounds the softest they have ever been, and the loud parts as loud as they can be, so that even hearing it one time, an audience will understand the music in its fullness.

MICCA continues all day Sunday at sites across Massachusetts including Hopkinton High School from noon to 4, with awards at 5 p.m. Hopkinton musicians' performances ended today.