Strings Ensemble earns superiors

The String Ensemble received four Superiors at it recent Music Performance Assessment.

“An MPA is a musical performance assessment,” orchestra director Maureen Fallon said. “We’ve always described it as the FCAT of the performing arts. You go play before three judges in which they evaluate students anywhere from poor to  superior, you play three songs on stage and then you go to another room for sight-reading in which you have five minutes to read it and play the song to get an overall score.”

Preparing for the MPAs is a long process.

“We took the seventh-graders and started preparing  since they come in form elementary school with not the best skills, and so we have to make them unified like a team would be to get all the stuff done,” Fallon said. “So the preparing really starts in September or August. When we come back to school and after Winter Break, then it really just builds up to it by pacing them so they are ready to play their best at the time of MPA not two weeks before or two weeks after.”

By Matthew Volk