McLean orchestra is holding its annual spring concert at 7:00 p.m. on May 20, a culmination of this year’s rehearsals and practice. With three senior solos, two original pieces composed by students and several recognizable pop songs, the concert will be the orchestra's largest performance of the year. Prepared songs include “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay, the Pirates of the Caribbean theme and “Popular" from the musical Wicked.

“The top orchestra philharmonic is going to play a full concerto,” orchestra director Starlet Smith said. “A concerto is typically three movements, so we have three students each playing a different movement by a different composer.”

Violinist senior Birka Chen has been preparing and memorizing her ten-page Tchaikovsky solo for over a year, practicing for about one hour per day.

“As in all things in music, each note, and every choice you make with each note, serves a purpose in creating color and character,” Chen said. “For Tchaikovsky’s [violin concerto], I'm creating many different characters in each section of the piece. My teacher coached me through one section and we decided that the second phrase should almost scoop up the first phrase, like two people dancing. It's images like these that push me to do something special with the music that's written on the page.”

The orchestra is also preparing to perform two original pieces composed by McLean students.

“Like all my compositions, this piece and the melody is composed of elements from a lot of the music I've listened to before,” senior Kailyn Kim said. “With music, you're really not writing a fresh idea of your own, but crafting one as a mosaic of what your ears have been fed so far. I think for this particular piece, I can pick out some orchestration techniques of Coleridge-Taylor and a few melodic phrases from Amelié, the Theatre Mclean spring musical this year.”

As the final concert of the year, the spring performance will also serve as a goodbye for McLean seniors, many of whom have been in orchestra for four years.

“I feel super lucky that I'm able to finish my time in the high school orchestra playing a solo with my orchestra,” Chen said. “It's a moment that I've been working towards for a long time, which makes it exciting but stressful at the same time. I'm looking forward to really being in the moment and sharing my music with the people I care about.”