Southeastern High School Orchestra

The mission of the Hamilton Southeastern High School Orchestra Program is to challenge, inspire, understand, and represent through the art and communication of music performance.

HSEHS Southeastern Orchestra, Families!

Our Southeastern Orchestra students were awfully busy last month!

ISSMA State Solo and Ensemble Performances, 140 students on stage for our JH Side By Side and students accepted into the ISO Side By Side! We were also incredibly honored to have composer and conductor, Arturo Rodriguez, out from LA to work with the Symphony Orchestra on his piece, Desolación. A huge thank you to the Royal Pride PTO for sponsoring Arturo's trip from LA to Indianapolis to work with our students!

As we now turn our attention to the Spring, we have important information below regarding upcoming performances, auditions and more! We are looking forward to ISSMA in the coming weeks and feel that our students are doing a great job of preparing themselves for this event. Encourage them to keep practicing and working hard because it will pay off for everyone in the end! Additionally, we have some incredible educators coming in to clinic our groups to further prepare students!

There is a lot of important information in this newsletter and we hope you will take the time to read through and familiarize yourself with our upcoming performances!

We hope you are enjoying the warmer weather!

Heather Nieto, Director of Orchestras

Charles Kunz, Associate Director of Orchestras

Congratulations Calvin Kocal, Kaitlyn Propst, Noah Millis, Ethan Poehlein, Jackson Fuller, Rohan Eapen, Shalin Eapen and Kahaan Modi for their outstanding performance at the ISSMA State Solo & Ensemble Contest in February!

This past week we were honored to bring composer and conductor, Arturo Rodriguez, to HSE from Los Angeles! While here, Maestro Rodriguez worked with the Symphony strings on his original composition, Desolación! Additionally, Maestro Rodriguez talked with the Serenata Orchestra, played piano for the piano classes and worked with the full Southeastern Symphony! What an absolutely incredible experience for the kids! Maestro Rodriguez was excellent teaching the students and guiding them through all of their repertoire!

Read more about Maestro Rodriguez: https://arturosmusic.com/

We had an incredible turn out at our Royal Pride String Fest 24! We had more than 140 students between our Symphony Orchestra, HSE Junior High Orchestra, Fishers Junior High Orchestra, and Riverside Junior High Orchestra!

All students grades 8-11 have had the audition material for a few weeks now. Auditions are an expectation for current students in grades 9-11 in Camerata, Philharmonic and Serenata Orchestras, regardless of their intention for next year. We encourage students to reach out to upper classman and Symphony students to help them with their audition material. Auditions are due no later than Thursday, March 28th. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns about auditions and placements for the 24-25 school year!

Come out and see our fantastic musical Guys & Dolls! Tickets are available for Thursday 3/16, Friday 3/17, or Saturday 3/18 at 7:00PM!! Not only do we have incredible actors and musicians on stage, the pit is LIVE with our talented HSEHS musicians!!

March and April are ISSMA Preview Concert and Contest Season! Please read the following announcements carefully!

*Camerata, Philharmonic and Serenata (ISSMA DISTRICT ORGANIZATION CONTEST)

*Southeastern Symphony (ISSMA STATE QUALS CONTEST)

Families,

We are in need of student AND parent volunteers for our upcoming ISSMA District Contest because we are hosting at Hamilton Southeastern High School. Please take a moment to look at the Sign Up Genius link below or scan the QR Code and see how you can help! We have many positions available and varying blocks of time! Thank you in advance for your service and commitment!

ISSMA DISTRICT ORGANIZATION CONTEST VOLUNTEER LINK

ISSMA DISTRICT PREVIEW CONCERT & CLINIC ANNOUNCEMENT 2024

Camerata, Philharmonic, and Serenata students will be performing on Tuesday, March 26th at our Preview Concert and Clinic. Please see the schedule linked at the top. The purpose of this performance is to give students an opportunity to perform their contest music prior to the contest event. It is also intended to give the students a "mock judging" experience but with a highly qualified musician that will give direct feedback and work with students in an effort to help them improve prior to the contest in April.

Students will be working with Dr. Jon Noworyta from the University of Indianapolis. You can see his bio and additional information here: https://uindy.edu/cas/music/faculty-fulltime

Camerata, Philharmonic, and Serenata students will participate in the ISSMA District Organization Contest on either Friday, April 19th or Saturday, April 20th. ISSMA will send out schedules roughly two weeks prior to the performance. The students have been working all semester towards this event and their participation is mandatory. Please continue to keep both the 19th and 20th free from conflicts and we will send the schedule out as soon as we receive it from ISSMA.

*If you have any questions regarding any ISSMA event, please refrain from contacting ISSMA directly. Any questions/concerns you may have should be shared with your directors first and they will contact ISSMA as needed.

ISSMA STATE QUALS PREVIEW CONCERT & CLINIC 2024

Southeastern Symphony students will be performing on Tuesday, April 16th for our State Quals Preview Concert and Clinic. Please see the schedule linked at the top. The purpose of this performance is to give students an opportunity to perform their contest music prior to the contest event. It is also intended to give the students a "mock judging" experience but with a highly qualified musician that will give direct feedback and work with students in an effort to help them improve prior to the ISSMA State Qualification contest in April.

We are thrilled to have Mr. Matt James giving us feedback as well as leading our clinic and Mr. Randy Greenwell giving us additional feedback during our performance.

Matt James and Randy Greenwell, Bios

Southeastern Symphony students will participate in the ISSMA State Qualifications Contest on either Friday, April 26th or Saturday, April 27th at Warren Central High School. We have specifically requested Friday, April 26th due to foreseen conflicts with a few of our students. However, ISSMA will have to review requests from us as well as other schools requesting Friday to determine the final schedule. ISSMA will send out schedules roughly two weeks prior to the performance. The students have been working all semester towards this event and their participation is mandatory. Please continue to keep both the 26th and 27th free from conflicts and we will send the schedule out as soon as we receive it from ISSMA.

Additionally, should we qualify for finals by being ranked in the Top 8 orchestras in the state, we will perform for ISSMA State Finals on Saturday, May 4th. Our time will be determined based on a draw and we will have no control over that date or time. Please make sure you keep May 4th free from conflicts as there is always a good chance we will advance. The Southeastern is proud to say that 2022 was the first year in the orchestras history where they advanced to finals and we're looking forward to doing it again!

More information to come soon regarding this event!

*If you have any questions regarding any ISSMA event, please refrain from contacting ISSMA directly. Any questions/concerns you may have should be shared with your directors first and they will contact ISSMA as needed.

We will be passing along summer opportunities for strings as they come along!

Email: hnieto@hse.k12.in.us
Website: https://www.southeasternorchestras.org/
Phone: 317-594-4190 --8705

Email: ckunz@hse.k12.in.us
Website: https://www.southeasternorchestras.org/
Phone: 317-594-4190 --8722