By Carolyn Viraphandeth
The East Los Angeles College’s Symphony Orchestra celebrates the end of the semester with preparations for its upcoming winter concert, under the direction of Samvel Chilingarian.
The orchestra will be playing classic songs such as Robert Smith’s “Jingle Bells Forever” and John Williams’ “Superman Returns.”
Alex Tu has been a member of the orchestra for two semesters and he is currently in his third semester at ELAC. He said, “We rehearse as a group every Thursday from 7-10 p.m. While it may seem like three hours per rehearsal is a lot of work, it’s not really work if we’re doing something we enjoy.”
He says that he has enjoyed his overall experience with the orchestra, as it is fun and entertaining.
“Everyone is very interactive in terms of helping each other improve,” Tu said, “We spend lots of time practicing and I believe it helps the members of the orchestra work together as a team.”
Besides rehearsing with everyone in orchestra, everyone else’s individual practice times are different among each other.
“For individual practicing, practice time varies from person to person,” said Tu.
The orchestra has two more group practices before the day of the concert.
“I feel confident that we will be more than ready to give our best performance,” Tu said.
Entry to the concert is free and begins December 11, at 8p.m.
It will be held in the S2 Recital Hall at the ELAC Performing Arts Center.
