Tri-M Music Honor Society held their spring recital on May 6 at 6:30 pm in the auditorium. A community wide event that provides complete artistic freedom to student musicians, this recital is only one of the two shows that the society typically organizes every year.
“This is the third Tri-M recital that I have had the pleasure of organizing with our sponsor, Ms. Smith,” said senior Joanna Ni, president of the Tri-M Music Honor Society. “Most members [play] in an ensemble, so [many students] often [heard] lots of rehearsal in the orchestra hallway during Highlander Time and after school [in the weeks leading up to the event].”
As members are not musically restricted on the pieces that they can play for the recital, the audience received an impressive span of musical selection during the production.
“We’ve had performances ranging from ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on a secondary instrument to ‘Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 2,’” Ni said. “The recitals are meant to be a lighthearted event for members to show off the pieces they [worked on], so we [encourage] everyone to have fun and play something enjoyable.”
Reaching an influx of 70 to 100 interested members this year, the leadership of the Tri-M Music Honor Society decided not to hold their induction ceremony the same night as the spring recital which was the previously planned arrangement. Instead, the induction ceremony was pushed to another night in order to allot more time to members’ performances during the recital.
“Even last year, with the smaller [member] numbers, [Tri-M] spent the full 3 hours performing and didn’t have an induction ceremony,” Ni said. “We generally see a [larger interest] of members wanting to play in the spring recital, so it is always a goal to push more members to play in the earlier winter recital.”
The recital offered free admission and turned out to be an extremely engaging event, leading hopes by leadership to continue similar shows in the future.
“The recital is an enjoyable [opportunity] for the members to play for each other rather than bear the pressure of performing,” Ni said. “We also [had] a nice parent turnout, so the recital [was] hopefully a nice show for the parents, especially to thank them for their contributions in their child’s musical education.”