On Tuesday, Jan 23, Centreville String Quartet performed with fifth and sixth grade orchestra students at Union Mill Elementary School. They played along with the elementary students for all of their songs and played two of their own songs, a duet and a quartet.
The quartet is made up of cellist Hayden Spencer, violist Jung Woo Choi, and violinists Seoyeon Kim and Hannah Gaffney. They are all members of the Tri-M Honor Society. The group formed after a group performance for a Tri-M recital needed a cellist, so Spencer joined, making it a quartet. After that performance, they decided to continue playing together, and have been a quartet for a few months.
After playing with elementary school students for several songs, the quartet was introduced by Union Mill strings teacher Mrs. Brown to play two songs. The first song was a duet, titled “The Rakes of Mallow,” and was played by Sean Hyjek and Hayden Spencer. The next song, Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik,” was played by the full quartet.
“Their performance was outstanding, both the duet and the quartet were just the highest levels of skill. I was very impressed. I watched my students’ faces while they were performing and they were in awe, so I think they’ve inspired some musicians to continue for sure,” said Mrs. Brown.
Before the Union Mill performance, the quartet had only performed at retirement homes, but they look forward to more performances in the future. “Old people loved us,” said Jung Woo Choi, about performing at the retirement home, “Some of them yelled at us, but it was good yelling.”
Some of the members have been playing their instruments since early elementary school, the same age as many of the students they played with at the performance. Senior Hayden Spencer has played the cello since he was a fourth grade student at Union Mill, now in his ninth year of playing. He said that “it’s really cool” to be back at Union Mill to perform. “It’s great to see Mrs. Brown again and be able to give back to the community that I got started in here.”
Mrs. Brown was also excited to see former students return. “It is very fulfilling and rewarding to see how far they’ve come and how successful they are. It just makes me very happy and proud.”
Centreville String Quartet encourages people interested in orchestra at Centreville to pursue it, and they hope people will check out their future performances! They can be found on Instagram @centrevillesq. Hayden Spencer said “It’s never too late to come back to your instrument if you left it but if you’re still with it, definitely keep going with it, don’t give it up, it’s definitely rewardable and you can make a lot of connections and friends that way and just enhance your life a lot.”
