The school’s music department hopes to hit the right note with its inaugural symphony orchestra class which combines the former wind ensemble and chamber orchestra.  

“These are the highest achieving music students on campus,” band and orchestra director Christopher Houze said. “These are typically juniors and seniors, although, there’s several sophomores and a few freshmen sprinkled in. I think we even have two eighth-graders in the class.”

Sophomore Sean Regan said he enjoys the class.

“I really like it because it allows us to play more music. It opens us up to more pieces,” Regan said. “Even if we want to do just wind or just strings, we can split it up into two groups and do it that way.”

However, the school’s music library did not receive any new music or instruments to accommodate the new class, according to Houze.

“We have a great library for just string music, and we have a great library for just wind music, [but] we did not have a great library for the full orchestra,” Houze said. “We’ve borrowed from the Melbourne Community Orchestra and we’ve borrowed from Satellite [High School]. So the music we haven’t purchased yet, we’ve been borrowing from other places.”

Eighth-grader Warrick F., a member of beginning orchestra, supports the new musical endeavor.  

“I think it’s really cool, because you can play both pieces from an orchestra and a band,” he said. “You can play more advanced pieces that sound better.”

Due to health concerns, theater and orchestra teacher Maureen Fallon needed to move into a part-time role in regard to orchestra, so the school’s administration assigned Houze and chorus teacher Amy Davis to assist.

“We’ve always been interested in doing the full symphony thing,” Houze said. “This was a good opportunity to help Ms. Fallon out and also do something we’ve never done before.”

By Riley Harper

Editor’s note: Brevard Public Schools policy prohibits the inclusion of middle-schoolers’ last names on district-funded websites.