Langley Orchestra

Langley Orchestra is excited to welcome all string students to the upcoming 2024-2025 school year!

Langley’s orchestra program is comprised of five classes that rehearse separately (Freshman Orchestra, Sophomore Orchestra, Junior Advanced Orchestra, Senior Advanced Orchestra, and audition-only Philharmonic) but often combine into three orchestras for concerts, assemblies, and assessments (Concert Orchestra, Symphonic Orchestra, and Philharmonic Orchestra). 

On November 3^rd, the FCPS Board voted to add an honors weighting (+0.5) to advanced Fine Arts classes (including Advanced Orchestra) beginning in the 2023-2024 school year. Advanced Orchestra at Langley High School includes Juniors, Seniors & Philharmonic classes.

New string students coming to Langley High School are automatically placed into their grade-level class.  If new students wish to be considered for advanced placement, section seating, or Philharmonic class, they are required to submit an audition by video.  The audition will comprise one scale of the student’s choosing (number of octaves and difficulty will be considered – 3 octaves required for Philharmonic) and a short excerpt of a solo piece (1-2 min) that demonstrates the student’s technical abilities.  There is no need for special equipment – a video from a smartphone, tablet, or school laptop works fine and piano accompaniment is not necessary.  Please be sure to introduce yourself at the beginning of your video. The audition videos can by submitted via this Google Form. Note the entire video including your introduction, scale and excerpt should not exceed 4 minutes in length. The deadline to submit the audition video is Sunday, May 5, 2024.

Please note that the limit for file upload is 10MB. If your video exceeds the 10 MB limit, please use the following method:

• Upload your video recording to YouTube. Video files submitted in other formats will not be accepted. Steps for YouTube uploads can be found here.
• During upload, select the “Unlisted” privacy option. This allows you to still share the video link with us without making the video viewable to the public. More info here. Check the YouTube video link to make sure it works.
• Submit your audition video link via this Google Form (note you need to log into your Google account using non-FCPS email to access this form).
• The link could be included in any of the free response questions such as years playing instrument, and list of instrument activities.

If you encounter any technical problems, please contact webmaster Mrs. Xiaoli Zhao.

Students currently in Langley Orchestra will audition during Langley Links in April after Spring Break – look for an announcement and sign-up information in Schoology soon.  

Happy New Year! Huge congratulations to the following Langley District XII Honors Orchestra students who participated in the 2024 DHO event on January 12-13:

• Zifei Zhao, concertmaster
• Michaela Frey, principal 2nd
• Geoffrey Yuan, 1st violin
• Sophie Lin, 2nd violin
• Dinh Lam, 2nd violin
• John Wu, viola
• Avery Orfitelli, viola
• Catherine Lyons, viola
• Shumvobi Mitra, assistant principal cello
• Max Tang, cello
• Allison Chung, cello
• Joanna Chen, cello
• Tony Aue, cello
• Bryan Xia, cello
• Riley Seewer, bass

We are proud to say that Langley hosted another successful DHO! Not only did Langley Orchestra have the most students (15) out of any high school perform, we even took the concertmaster (Zifei), principal 2nd (Michaela), and assistant principal cello (Shumvobi) positions! These students worked hard to prepare for an audition to be chosen out of hundreds of students to play in a weekend concert and their efforts were paid off, great job to all of you!

The guest conductor this year was the director of orchestra studies at GMU, Dr. Soo Han. He did a great job preparing the difficult program, which included Kirt N. Mosier’s “Overture to the Wind,” Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” Karel Butz’s “The Mighty Columbia,” and Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Opus 46.” 

Once again, congratulations to our students and Happy New Year!