Apex orchestra takes a bow

Nicholas Chupka and Zane Muzzillo

Staff Writers

The logo of the Southern Star Music Festival

Apex High’s own advanced orchestra, led by orchestra teacher Todd Miller, competed in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 12 at the Southern Star Music Festival.

“They did great. We had the highest score of the day,” says Miller. The Apex advanced orchestra paired up with the Green Hope orchestra, something that they did in last year’s competition in Orlando, Florida. “[From] Apex there were about 15 students, but combined [with Green Hope] there were about 30 students,” says Apex senior and first chair violinist Maitreyi Muralidharan.

Overall, the orchestra placed first among the other competitors. “We’re the grand champions,” Miller says, though he admits there is always room for improvement. “Our weaknesses were probably playing together, keeping the parts vertically aligned, and it could have been more expressive.”

Some orchestra members initially had little hope for success. “We actually didn’t go to the awards ceremony because we didn’t think we would win, so we went to Six Flags instead. We found out that we’d won when we got on the bus and saw two trophies,” says Muralidharan. Miller has a slightly different story, “We weren’t going to go to the awards ceremony anyway, because we were busy, but we ended up going to Six Flags anyway.”

The orchestra members seemed to be content with their victory. “We were very happy, very excited, and very proud,” says Miller.