Orchestra Mark of Excellence

It is with great joy to share that our program has received The Foundation for Music Education's Mark of Excellence award for the third straight year.  The Mark of Excellence is a national award and one of the most competitive in secondary music; an annual battle among the best programs in the country to earn this distinction. Through two rounds of judging by some of the best collegiate professors and professional conductors, our Premier Strings were given extremely high praise for their live performances submitted from last school year, which have links below.  Some of the commentary our students received:

  • They play not of notes, but of music

  • Incredible soloists, mature and playing of assuredness

  • Your students have an understanding of the human experience, as shared through music

  • So heartbreakingly poignant

  • The artistry you’ve comported is touching

  • Your audience should have experienced a meditative reflection on the transport that you just took people through into the core of the human heart and how it works

  • They do not play like high school students.  They play like people who are chronologically in high school, but whose experiential artistic maturity is around 40 to 50.

  • I would love to sit in this orchestra and learn something about the art as you understand it.

Click on the links to listen to their live performances!

🎶 Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

🎶 Gustav Mahler - Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 

David Irish
Director of Orchestras
Summer Creek High School