First Annual Seminole County String Fest

Seminole County, FL is not particularly known for their string programs. In fact, there are very few. Some of them are in middle schools, such as Millennium Middle School in Sanford, FL, and there is only one high school string orchestra program at Seminole High School, which is ironically enough about four blocks down the street from Millennium Middle School. Needless to say, it is extremely difficult to hold a program like this up when there is no support from other schools in the form of students. Teachers call these types of schools 'feeder schools' because, as the name suggests, they feed these programs students to keep them thriving. At Seminole High School, there can only be one feeder program, which is Millennium Middle since it is in the same zone. If there are middle schools outside of that particular zone, then those students would not be able to go to Seminole High School.

This past weekend on March 27th, 2010, Seminole High School hosted the First Annual Seminole County String Fest. The main purpose was the bring all of the string students of Seminole County, FL together for a day of master classes with University of Central Florida string faculty (Ayako Yonetani, violin and Laurel Stanton, cello) and rehearsals under the combined direction of Maureen May, strings teacher at Millennium Middle School and Andrea Newhouse, band and orchestra director at Seminole High School.

The overall outcome included about 150 students. This included all of the string players from Seminole High School and Millennium Middle School and eight elementary strings students from Bentley Elementary School in Sanford, FL. The day started off with a welcoming meeting from the directors Ms. Newhouse and Ms. May quickly followed by master classes led by the esteemed UCF faculty. After that, there was an hour long rehearsal with all players combined into one orchestra. Lunch followed that, and each group, Seminole High School Orchestra and Millennium Middle School Orchestra, rehearsed separately. There was a short performance that ended that day that featured both orchestras and finally the overall combined orchestra with all 150 students.

The overall reaction from the community was positive. Bill Reinecke, music supervisor for Seminole County, was in attendance and showed excitement at everything that was transpiring. Both directors were pleased at the attendance by the students and are already making plans for next year.

If you have any questions about the strings program at either Seminole High School or Millennium Middle School, feel free to contact the corresponding directors. You can reach Ms. Newhouse at 407-320-5161 and Ms. May at 407-320-6550.