[NSD] – The Newhall School District’s 2012 Spring Concerts will be presented on Tuesday, May 29; Wednesday, May 30; Thursday, May 31; and Friday June 1, at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m, at Wiley Canyon Elementary School. The student orchestras and choruses of Meadows, Newhall, Oak Hills, Pico Canyon, Valencia Valley, Old Orchard, Stevenson Ranch, McGrath, Peachland and Wiley Canyon Schools will perform. A $3 donation is requested at the door to support the district’s music program.

The Newhall School District has maintained an instrumental music program for over 30 years, a unique accomplishment in an era when budget cuts have decimated arts programming at the elementary level. Over 800 students participate in the instrumental program and another 800 students are members of the school choruses.

“Beginning Orchestra students will be experiencing their first big concert! They will be playing classics such as ‘Hot Cross Buns,’ ‘Twinkle Little Star,’ and other selections,” said Monica Kaplan, a member of the Music Makers PTA. Beginning students received a check off sheet at the beginning of the school year with many benchmark songs to challenge their musicianship. Students who checked off all their benchmark songs receive an orchestra medal.

Kaplan also shared that students in the Intermediate Strings, will perform “Staccato March,” “French Folk Song,” and a beautiful rendition of the theme from “New World Symphony,” by Dvorak. Intermediate Band will be playing “Classical Cannon,” by Haydn and will be combined with the Advanced Band to play the epic “Star Wars!” The Advanced Strings will be performing “Slavonic Dance,” by Dvorak and “Fiddles on Fire!” The Advanced Band will perform “Star Wars,” “Stone Gate Overture,” and “Take the Blues Train,” for a little bit of jazzy soul. Newhall’s All-District Honor Orchestra, consisting of 80 members, will wow the audience with a cowboy themed song called “Go West,” as well as two well known classics “Ride of the Valkyrie,” and “Can-Can.”

The Chorus will feature many genres and styles of songs this spring including a spring Japanese folk song called “Sakura,” an old favorite called “Magic,” a medley of Beach Boys tunes, a jazzy tune “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got that Swing.” One special group of songs is based off poems by Robert Lewis Stevenson.

Each night at the 5:30 p.m. concert there will be several featured artists who auditioned in April to perform solos at the spring concert. “The level of skill of these students is amazing and inspiring!” said Kaplan.