This month at Hendrick Hudson High School, the school’s Chamber Orchestra, Choir, and Wind Ensemble collaborated in a combined performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana cantata. A rich and technically challenging piece, Hen Hud’s dedicated students performed Orff’s magnum opus in an impressive display of musical talent to the community’s delight on Thursday, April 18th in the school’s auditorium.

Carmina Burana was a tremendous undertaking for Hen Hud’s music teachers. The coordination of having three student groups, along with a spattering of professionals and alumni throughout the sections, took months of collaboration, patience, and most of all, practice. 

“This masterwork is a large-scale piece, bigger than anything this group of students has attempted or been exposed to,”  Mr. Acrish, the band director, noted. The band and orchestra were able to conduct combined rehearsals, of which became more and more frequent in the weeks leading up to the performance. Under Mr. Acrish’s conducting and alongside Mrs. Morabito in the second violin section, rehearsals were challenging for students; reading this type of piece was a contrast to the more modern, contemporary works often played by the Chamber Orchestra and Wind Ensemble alike.  

“I was so excited for this unique opportunity to play this type of literature alongside my students. It creates a new and incredibly fulfilling learning environment for all of us” Mrs. Morabito stated when asked about her experience. Carmina Burana is complicated music literature to read, furthering Morabito’s enjoyment as she was able to watch students work through this new territory. 

Aside from the challenging instrumentals, the chorus had just as large an undertaking: singing in Latin, German, and even some French. “Probably the biggest challenge in learning the music for Carmina Burana for the singers is the language. The main language is Latin, but there are also some movements in German and French. Add to that, the amount of words and the quick tempos in some of the movements, makes it extremely challenging for the singers,” Denler noted. Senior Mia O’Malley performed a vocal solo in the song “In Trutina,” accompanied by the instrumental.

 The commitment of the students, teachers, and guest performers was undeniably strong. The process of practicing over the last seven months – both inside and outside school – required a high level of dedication for all involved, and the result was a performance that honored Carmina Burana and showcased the talent of Hendrick Hudson’s music program. 

– How Mr. Acrish prepared to conduct Carmina Burana

“Preparation of any score is a detailed and time consuming process. This piece is particularly difficult for 2 reasons. One, we have a chorus in addition to instrumental parts, and two, we are using three separate arrangements that happen to work together, which means having to learn 3 separate scores simultaneously! My process for learning a score and preparing to conduct it usually starts with a reading and/or listening of the piece while following the score and conducting along with it. Next I do a harmonic analysis, figuring out what the chords are and how each instrument fits into this. There are a lot of time changes in this piece as well as stylistic and dynamic changes. As I’m analyzing I make decisions about what the music is communicating and then I make decisions about how my conducting will best express that to the musicians.  Luckily this is the second time I’ve conducted Carmina Burana, so a lot of this work was done before, making this time more of a review.”