Fort Collins High, Lesher orchestras earn right to perform at Music for All National event

Orchestras from two Fort Collins schools got to complete an opportunity their predecessors had cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic late last week, traveling to Indianapolis to participate in the Music for All National Festival.

Forty-seven students in Fort Collins High School’s Symphony Orchestra and 21 students in Lesher Middle School’s Advanced Chamber Orchestra made the trip. They were the only two school musical groups from Colorado selected to participate in the three-day national festival for school ensembles.

“The competition is getting there, so once you’ve made it, the competition is over, and it’s a celebration of those who are there,” Fort Collins High orchestra director John Hermanson said Monday.

A highlight of the festival, Hermanson said, was the opportunity each group was given to perform in the Palladium, a 1,500-seat concert hall in Carmel, Indiana, that combines centuries-old architecture with state-of-the-art audio technology, according to its website. The two Fort Collins orchestras were among just eight in the country — along with three from Texas, two from Florida and one from Virginia — that were given that opportunity.

“That’s just a stunning hall; it’s really cool,” Hermanson said. “That performance was the best given by the Fort Collins High School Symphony Orchestra. They did a fantastic job, and their work leading up to it was remarkable.”

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Fort Collins and Lesher both had orchestras selected to participate in the Music for All National Festival in 2020, he said. They each traveled there for the start of the event on March 12 but had to return early as travel restrictions and shutdowns for the pandemic began. Lesher’s orchestra was able to perform a day earlier than originally scheduled that year, Lesher director Loni Obluda said Tuesday, but Fort Collins High’s orchestra didn’t get the chance.

“Fort Collins High School was due to perform the next day,” she said. “We had all those kids out there; they worked so hard, and then they didn’t even get the chance to play.”

The two schools hadn’t entered the Music for All National Festival since, she said. That is, until this year, when both were again selected through a rigorous audition process involving judges who are nationally recognized in their areas, Hermanson said.

“I told the students prepping for something like this is very similar to climbing a fourteener; it’s just a long haul,” said Obluda, who is in her 15th year at Lesher. “There are moments when it just feels awesome and other moments when all you want to do is sit down and quit, because it’s so much work.”

One of the judges who selected the Fort Collins High Symphony Orchestra, he said, was Jeff Grogan, an internationally known conductor and music educator who has led performances by youth orchestras at some of the best-known concert halls in the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York and the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria.

Grogan and other judges provided feedback to the school orchestras based on their audition recordings and performances at the festival, Hermanson said.

“His comments to us were that our performance was really outstanding,” Hermanson said. “He complimented the kids on their artistry and told them he was moved. That’s a pretty big deal coming from somebody like that. …

“All the judges said it was just an outstanding performance, which is true. The kids really brought it and did excellent work.”

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Hermanson, who is in his 11th year at Fort Collins High, said he gives his orchestras the opportunity to enter their work through auditions in various competitions every year.

“I feel like that’s part of their orchestra experience, to travel and get exposed to other things,” he said.

This trip was particularly meaningful for him and his students, though. Steve McNeal, who began teaching orchestra at Fort Collins High in 1962 and spent 36 years as a music educator there and at Lesher, traveled to Indianapolis with the students. And Matt Spieker, who taught orchestra at Fort Collins High after McNeal retired and before Hermanson began, now teaches at Ball State University in Indiana and joined the group in Indianapolis.

The performing arts center at FCHS is named in honor of McNeal.

“Together, that’s 62 years or orchestra experience at Fort Collins High School,” Hermanson said.

Three of Fort Collins High’s five orchestras will participate in the state orchestra festival April 11 at Metropolitan State University of Denver, he said. The Symphony Orchestra will also perform locally in Fort Collins High’s annual honors concert at 7 p.m. May 21 in the McNeal Performing Arts Center.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and  facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: FCHS, Lesher orchestras perform at Music for All National Festival