Hopkins Orchestra: National Festival's Only California Group

Congratulations! Advanced Orchestra of Hopkins Junior High School, Fremont, has been accepted by the American String Teachers Association to participate in the National Orchestra Festival 2019, which will be held March 6 to 9 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While participants of the festival include sixteen high schools and six middle schools across the country, Hopkins’ 70-member ensemble will be the only group nationwide to represent California. It will also be the first Fremont-based music group to compete at a national festival.

Join us for an evening Home Concert on Monday, March 4 when the community and families that do not travel along will have the opportunity to appreciate all the hard work and resources put into preparing these talented students for the national stage. The musicians themselves will also benefit from a final dress rehearsal three days prior to their departure.

Since its inception in 2005, Hopkins’ orchestra program has been setting and continuously raising the standard of excellence in school music education. Advanced Orchestra has received twelve Superior ratings at the Music in the Parks Disneyland Festival every year since 2007, and eleven Overall First Place awards every year since 2008. Only five Perfect Scores have ever been awarded at the festival since 1990, and four of them belong to Hopkins Advanced Orchestra.

In 2012, Hopkins Advanced Orchestra was a featured performer at California All-State Music Education Conference (CASMEC) as the only orchestra accepted statewide. In 2013, the California Music Education Association (CMEA) established the All-State Band and Orchestra Festival. Both flagship ensembles of Hopkins—Advanced Orchestra and Wind Ensemble—received the coveted Unanimous Superior rating at the event, and both have earned the same highest possible rating every year since. Unprecedented in the four-year history of the festival was a Perfect Score of “100” that was awarded to Advanced Orchestra at the same festival in 2016.

In the local CMEA Bay Section Festival in 2015, all six Hopkins ensembles earned the highest possible Unanimous Superior rating. That same year, Advanced Orchestra delivered the world premiere of Miraj, composed and conducted by renowned music educator Richard Meyer, at Ohlone College, Fremont—the first time in recent history that an original piece of music was written by a guest composer for a school ensemble in Fremont. This commission was a gift donated by the community to honor the success of the instrumental music groups of the school and to benefit its future music students.

More recently in CASMEC 2017, Hopkins Advanced Orchestra was proud to be the only orchestra accepted statewide to be a featured performer at the conference, and one of only two middle school ensembles invited.

Hopkins Advanced Orchestra

Pre-National Orchestra Festival Home Concert

Directed by Mr. Greg Conway

Monday, March 4, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.

Hopkins Junior High School

600 Driscoll Road, Fremont, CA 94539

Free Admission

https://musicathopkins.com/