“When Andrew Stanley’s elementary school last year ‘forced’ him to play a musical instrument as part of a school curriculum, it changed his life,” writes Joseph Pimentel in Monday’s (2/6) Orange County Register (California). “Stanley caught the classical music bug. Only a year after picking up the violin, Stanley, a 12-year-old seventh-grade student at El Rancho Charter School, played in front of a sold-out crowd during Saturday’s Lantern Festival at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. He was part of the student orchestra, Strings for Generations, a partnership between the Pacific Symphony and the Irvine Chinese School…. Andrew picked up the violin as part of Running Springs Elementary School’s Visual and Performing Arts program, implemented last year at all of Orange Unified School District’s 27 schools…. Andrew said he probably would have never picked up a violin if the school hadn’t required him to choose an instrument. He said he practices his violin everyday; he listens to Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and other classical music while he does his homework. He and his family attend concerts. Seeing the string players at a recent orchestra concert, he said he made a wish: ‘Someday, maybe, I can be one of those players.’ ”
Posted February 10, 2017
