Image via Samira Winterstein

South Lakes musicians took to the stage last Thursday to perform “Carmina Burana”, an hour long cantanta, in a huge triumph for the school’s music department. Mainly sung in Latin with a few German phrases, the piece is usually only done by professional groups. The piece was performed by South Lakes’ Chamber Orchestra, Vocal Arts Ensemble, as well as the Seahawk Singers and a few singers from the SLHS Treble Ensemble. Additionally, the school’s music department hired professionals to help the student musicians with parts of the piece, including percussionists, singers, as well as a flutist and bassoonist.

First performed in 1937, “Carmina Burana” was created by Carl Orff, a German composer born in 1895. He was inspired to create the piece by a collection of medieval poems, which were estimated to be written from 1220-1250, which he found in the possession of an antique collector. The original writers of the poems were young, poor members of the clergy who roamed around Europe, documenting their views on a range of topics. Orff took these medieval texts, selecting 24 out of the 315 for use, and arranged them to create “Carmina Burana.” The piece is widely considered to be Orff’s greatest work, with performances of the composition taking place around the world. 

Liam Birch, a 10th grader who participated in “Carmina Burana” as a tenor singer, talked about his experience practicing for the show, “We put in a lot of work getting ready for this. Every class, there [were] about two hours of straight singing, and then after school on Thursdays we would meet for about an hour. The most difficult part of the process was definitely trying to get the pronunciation down of a lot of the Latin.” While that was tricky for the singers, he mentioned that, “The most enjoyable part was working with the other classes. I know I practiced with the guys’ class, but then we ended up merging with the other classes, which was a lot of fun. I would say it was a lot easier to work with the orchestra rather than having it just be a chorus performance because the orchestra helped us know our cues and pitches.” Birch’s opinion on the end result was that, “The concert went pretty well. It was really fun, and I think the final product was awesome. I was listening to a recording and it sounded pretty cool.” One challenge during the performance was that, “It was hard to stand that long. It was like 50 minutes of standing without a single break, which was pretty tough.”

Spencer Webb, a senior who performed as both a tenor singer and a viola player during the concert, said that he enjoyed the different types of music that the concert allowed him to explore, “We had to play it differently. In orchestra, though it was a simpler piece, it was a lot longer and there were more times where we were waiting around. For singing, we had to sing in a different style than we were used to. Singing and playing in this new kind of way was a good learning experience.” Webb was satisfied with the results of the performance, saying, “We got a recording of it and when we started to listen to it, I couldn’t tell the difference between our recording and the professional recordings that we would hear online.” 

Veronika Owen, a senior violin player, said about the concert, “I’m very proud of the performance. I think it turned out as best as it could have. It was truly such a wonderful experience, [it was] by far my favorite concert ever.” Like Birch, she found it difficult to imagine how the final piece would come together during practice without the other musical group, “Sometimes it was difficult to see how the [orchestra part] would fit into the overall piece, with percussion and with chorus. Once we started having dress rehearsals, everything that didn’t quite make sense at first made more sense.” She also mentioned that Webb’s being a part of both orchestra and chorus was helpful, as he helped them to imagine how the chorus part would sound when he sang for them. “We spent months preparing this piece, going through all 25 movements. We worked every class, even had after school rehearsals, and by the end, I think it turned out pretty well.”

The music department’s October 19th performance was definitely a highlight in the history of SLHS’s chorus and orchestra programs, combining their talents to create a beautiful piece of music. Those who weren’t able to make it to the performance can enjoy the musicians’ rendition of “Carmina Burana” through a professional recording which can be found here.