BETHLEHEM PA – A Pottsgrove School District music teacher recently led 90 fifth- and sixth-grade orchestra students, from across seven Pennsylvania counties, through a festival concert attended by what observers called “an enthusiastic audience.”
Pottsgrove Middle and High School Orchestra Director William Einhorn was selected as a guest conductor for the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) District 10 Elementary Orchestra Festival. The event, which pays tribute to both the conductors’ skills and the student musicians’ work and excellence, was held April 5 (2024; Friday) at Northeast Middle School in Bethlehem.
The orchestra concert conducted by Einhorn was accompanied by a band concert led by a second guest conductor, Frank Parker, director of bands at Quakertown High School.
Einhorn has been involved in the educators association activities for several years. Most recently in mid-February, he and Pottsgrove music teacher Kristen Hyde helped to organize and coordinate PMEA’s District 11 String Fest concert event in the Pottsgrove Middle School auditorium.
‘An amazing experience’
The Bethlehem concert featured students from Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, Pike, and Schuylkill counties. Einhorn reported he spent five hours rehearsing the students – chosen by other judges in earlier auditions as the best on their instruments – in what he described as “an amazing experience.”
“The students were well-prepared, energetic, eager to perform, and most importantly they had fun,” Einhorn noted. “It’s not easy to rehearse for that amount of time, and on top of that it is not easy for the students to work with someone they have never met,” he added.
The proof of their mutual success was the audience’s delighted response, as evidenced in the accompanying videos (above and below).
Videos and photo provided by the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association,
used by Travels With The Post by permission
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