Tina Kaui wrote an email to Lincoln Lion Tales, where she told us about the Festival of Gold in Chicago. She is the parent of a student, and her daughter, Kalea, has been in the Lincoln Chamber Orchestra for the past three years. Tina Kaui tries to help the students to do fundraisers for that music festival.

The orchestra auditioned for the first time to attend at the Festival of Gold in Chicago. Tina Kaui told Lincoln Lion Tales, that this was Ms. Jan’s idea. She knew about that program and the opportunity related to that, so she sent in a recording of a concert from last year the Lincoln Chamber Orchestra had. However, the orchestra has been accepted to play at the Festival of Gold in Chicago on April 6-9 for the first time in history.

The Festival of Gold is an international music festival with a lot of different performances, which takes place at many different locations, for example Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, and of course Chicago. The students are going to be directed by Dr. Robert Gillespie, professor at the Ohio State University, and Dr. Peter Boonshaft, professor at the Hofstra University at Long Island, which also includes one-on-one time with them. Both of them are highly recognized instrumental clinicians, and the Lincoln Chamber Orchestra will learn a lot from them.

They will train and perform as a group, and be able to be part in an Encore Concert and Individual Honor ensembles. Their performances will be in the Orchestra Hall at the Chicago Symphony Center. The Chicago Symphony Center is a music complex, which contains different halls, like the Orchestra Hall, which has 2,522 seats.

It is very important, that everybody is able to go to Chicago with the orchestra, because Chamber is only a small group of 14 students, and every instrument and person is valuable in the group. An orchestra is teamwork. In addition to that, every student wants to be part of that incredible experience, as well as they do not want to miss the great chance to improve their skills even more.

For making sure, that everybody can attend at that great experience, the Lincoln Chamber Orchestra will do many different fundraisers in the next months, and they hope for your support. They already started to sell Gourmet Caramel Apples at September 6th, and they plan to sell discount cards for everything in the Bay Area all over the U.S. They also want to sell ALHS pins and stickers at the football, soccer, and baseball games, as well as they will do a chocolate bar sale in fall. In addition to that they are working on having a gift wrapping table at the local mall.

Also donations can be made to the Lincoln Music Boosters, if you want to support the Orchestra even more. You can also support the orchestra by helping at performances. They always need help, for example with assisting with the ticket sales, set up and serving the performances, or riding the bus to off-site concerts. Also you can donate drinks, food, or desserts for the student priors at performances.

As you can see, there are many ways to support the Lincoln Chamber Orchestra during the school year, and they will really appreciate it. However, we hope, that everything works out for the orchestra, and everybody will be able to attend at that great experience at the Festival of Gold in Chicago in April 2019.