On March 22, Lake Oswego School District’s school orchestra classes joined together to play in the All District Orchestra Festival. In the West Gym of Lake Oswego High School, hundreds of orchestra students gathered, consisting of the string orchestras of Lake Oswego High School, Lakeridge High School, Lake Oswego Middle School, Lakeridge Middle School and the elementary strings program. The bleachers were completely packed with parents, friends, siblings and teachers, all of whom assembled to appreciate the hard work of the students and teachers of the orchestra program.

The combined orchestra formed by the Lake Oswego and Lakeridge High School orchestras performed “Drifen,” a rhythmic and driving piece. Students of all the district’s orchestras then joined together to play “A Festival Rondo,” an energetic song split among the different orchestra levels.

This is the first all-district festival of Lake Oswego since 2019, as the previous ones had all been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. LOHS Junior Aidan Kwapisz, the principal violist of the combined high school orchestra, said that he was “super excited” at the prospect of restarting the yearly tradition of having a District Orchestra Festival. Kwapisz said that in his many years of being in the district’s orchestra program, “listening to the high-schoolers and older musicians [during the annual District Festivals] was always an inspiring experience” that he looked forward to every year. He said that he is “grateful for these events and opportunities to collaborate and inspire the next generation of string musicians.”

Lake Oswego High School’s orchestras have one more concert this year, which is a spring concert on May 16. Be sure to go and support our school’s talented musicians.