The Cherry Hill Public Library spent the first full week of April celebrating 20 years in the new library building.
Cherry Hill High School East’s music department held a free community concert on April 8, to mark the second day of the anniversary week.
While students did not have a specific uniform, all were dressed in black.
This is the third year the high school’s music performers have been invited to the library for a concert.
Gabriela Mandescu is the string specialist for Cherry Hill East, organizing and training the students who play string instruments.
“We are doing a lot of practice. We usually start putting the small groups together in September for the new year, and we practice through the school year after school,” said Mandescu.
Audience members began filtering in shortly before the 2 p.m. start time, finding their seats in the rows of cushioned folding chairs.
The concert began with a string quartet performance of two songs, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik- First Movement” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and “Quartet number six, opus 64- Fourth Movement” by Franz Joseph Haydn.
The students stood or sat at the front of the room, carefully tuning their instruments before they began putting their bows to the instruments’ strings.
They stared intently at the sheets of music in front of them, keeping in time with each other and playing the pieces with careful concentration.
This quartet featured ninth graders Joyce Lee and Alessandra Vieira on violin, tenth grader Remy Choi on voila and twelfth grader Erin Li on cello.
Timothy Keleher is the instrumental director and teaches AP music theory at Cherry Hill East.
“The students are being challenged. This is not music that’s been adapted for students. This is adult, the same music somebody would play there in the Philadelphia Orchestra,” said Keleher.
Upon the completion of the first quartet’s set, a second quartet walked up to the front of the room for their performance.
This set included “Quartet number four, opus 18” by Ludwig van Beethoven, selections from “Water Music” by George Frideric Handel, and selections from “Phantom of the Opera” by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
When the latter of the musical selections was announced, the crowd stirred with a few audible expressions of excitement.
The second quartet was made up of twelfth grader Kaiyan Ling and tenth grader Ethan Yang on violin, tenth grader Jaslyn Tsai on viola and ninth grader Katherine Gao on cello.
“They’re very fortunate to have this kind of program, and it’s one of the unique programs that are in South Jersey at this moment… to have this luxury of having these small groups performing with budgets and everything. So we’re very fortunate that Cherry Hill still has this program and to offer that to the community,” said Mandescu.
“Spring Sonata, Number Five- First Movement,” also by Beethoven, was a duet performed by eleventh grader Sean Tran and twelfth grader Jason Liang, on violin and piano respectively.
The concert wrapped with a set by a small group jazz band, performing “Take Five” by Paul Desmond and originally recorded by the Dave Brubeck Band, “If I were a Bell” by Frank Loesser, written for the Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls.”
As with the string players, none of the music was adapted for the students, allowing them to challenge themselves.
The finale of the show was “Autumn Leaves” by Joseph Kosma and Johnny Mercer.
The jazz band was made up of eleventh grade students Dan Cezair, Dan Hofmann, Jay Rivi and Lukas Ortega, and twelfth grader Mira Wang.
Every song was followed by an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience.
“This program is only possible because of our incredible administration which supports us and our students 1000% and are doing everything possible so that programs such as this one are available to students,” said Mandescu.
