Orchestra Night finished at Hill Auditorium on Tuesday, March 1st, for the first time in two years. Orchestra Night is an annual event where 7th graders and older from Ann Arbor Public School’s (AAPS) orchestras perform at Hill Auditorium. However, the high school performances were limited to only the symphony orchestra of each high school. Traditionally, middle school orchestras often merge with others, while symphony orchestras merge with small sections of their school’s band in order to form a proper symphony.

Due to COVID-19, Orchestra Night has been split into two events: Orchestra Day and Orchestra Night. Instead of every school performing back to back performances, they’ve been separated into different groups of orchestras performing at separate times. Splitting it up this way was not only a diversion from usual Orchestra Nights, but it allowed for the high school concert orchestras (The orchestra level below symphony) to perform during Orchestra Day and Night alongside the other orchestras.

Unfortunately, Orchestra Day and Night were not largely open to the public. Due to COVID-19, the live audience was limited to family and friends of the orchestra members.

All performances followed a brief presentation telling what the song is about, why they chose it and/or talks about current events unrelated to the song choice. This was seen when the Huron Symphony Orchestra brought to light the connection that they’ve lost and now regained from the pandemic severely hindering all music productions throughout AAPS.

That connection has once again been found. Our brass sung, symbols rang, and our drums rumbled, as our strings wove gold in our ears with the first orchestra night since we went into quarantine.