On Monday, April 28th, 2025, the Nanuet High School orchestra collaborated with the fifth-grade and middle school orchestras to transform contemporary musical pieces into fiery string performances in an annual phenomenon known as Stringfest.
Stringfest took place in the auditorium of the high school and was attended by family and friends who were astounded by the musicality of the students and thoroughly enjoyed the music of Queen, Nirvana, Coldplay, the Beatles and other renowned artists.
The setlist for the night included:
1958: Moanin’ in D – Recorded by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, arr. 5th Grade Orchestra
1963: Twist and Shout – Recorded by The Beatles, arr. Robert LongField
1975: Bohemian Rhapsody – Recorded by Queen, arr. John Berry
1991: Smells Like Teen Spirit – Recorded by Nirvana, arr. John Berry
2008: Viva La Vida – Recorded by Coldplay arr. Larry Moore
2015: Uptown Funk – Recorded by Mark Ronson, feat. Bruno Mars, arr. Larry Moore
1980: Crazy Train – Recorded by Ozzy Osbourne, arr. Mark Wood
Around 180 Nanuet students from fifth to twelfth grade performed, and soloists for the events included sophomore Mia Chindemi and senior Gabrielle Smith for “Crazy Train” and Freshman Anish Dubba and Emma Ng for “Uptown Funk.”
“Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls was performed by a small group of high schoolers: Sophomores Aniela Araujo , Charlotte Hurler, Ancelin Mathew and Dannia Peralta (sophomore) and freshman Emma Ng.
The audience was awed by the electric instruments played by sophomores Daniel Blickstein, AJ Rogers and senior Bryan Santana.
To commemorate their last Stringfest, seniors Josiah Dodoo, Maren Savino, Siobhan McDonagh, Samantha Mazariego and Nathan Mendler gave heartfelt senior speeches.
Mrs. Luckson spoke on the extensive preparation that goes into ensuring the performance goes as planned.
“We did a lot of individual prep in our classes for each piece and the finale,” she said, “which was very valuable as we only had about 15 minutes to work on the finale with everyone at our dress rehearsal the day of Stringfest! Other than that, we had the dress rehearsal schedule to allow time on the stage and go over the logistics.”
It wasn’t easy, especially because the performers are from both the middle and high school. “There are a lot of moving parts with Stringfest, so all the coordination work was probably the most stressful part, especially with the five different bell schedules we have to balance. With such musical and hardworking kids, the music is rarely the thing that is stressing us out the most with these types of concerts!”
Before any pieces could be prepared, they had to be chosen. Mrs. Luckson worked with the students to ensure a repertoire that all would be excited to perform.
“We initially pick a theme, oftentimes while discussing it with the kids, and then select pieces based off of the theme,” she said. “Depending on the grade/level and what music we have available, we also select the piece as a class. Additionally for the decades theme we discussed the use of a timeline (so we started in the 50s with fifth grade and went on from there). And for this particular concert, we actually started the decision for this theme because we found this awesome arrangement of ‘Crazy Train,’ which is designed to be for a multi-level orchestra, so it was a no-brainer for a decade’s theme concert finale.”
When asked about her favorite piece, Mrs. Lucksom acknowledged that she thoroughly enjoyed preparing and performing the full repertoire.
“I loved all the individual pieces and my favorite part of Stringfest is seeing the growth from fifth grade to HS,” she said.
However, she knew her answer. “If I had to pick a piece it’s definitely the finale, “Crazy Train” (arr. by Mark Wood), she said. “This was a challenging piece and the students really rose to the occasion and then some!”
Like Mrs. Lucksom, we are all incredibly proud of Nanuet’s orchestra students and their performance at this year’s Stringfest!