The Hopkinton High School vocal ensemble, Noteworthy, won a gold medal at the recent MICCA Festival.

The Hopkinton Public Schools Music Department has had a very busy month. On May 6, 23 students from Hopkinton Middle School and Hopkinton High School participated in the Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductors Association (MICCA) Solo and Ensemble Festival held at Concord-Carlisle Regional High School. The Jazz Ensemble then performed May 7 at the Hatch Shell in Boston as part of the Massachusetts Association of Jazz Educators (MAJE) Gold Medal Showcase.

The MICCA Solo and Ensemble Festival is offered to school-aged musicians to showcase individual and small-group performances. Each student received an award corresponding to the adjudicator’s evaluation of the performance, consistent with the MICCA Medal Rating System. The students performed in an open recital atmosphere in a classroom. The adjudicators then offered a brief workshop immediately following the performance.

HMS students who participated in the solo performances were Arshia Tharakabhushanam (who won a gold medal), Yulhee Kwon (gold), Jacob Wu (gold), Aritro Chatterjee (silver), Urmi Chowdhuri (gold), Kira Konyk (silver), Olivia Wiedenmann (silver) and Sahasra Charkam (silver). The Middle School String Trio of Yulhee Kwon, Jacob Wu and Aritro Chatterjee performed in the ensemble division, earning a silver medal. Mrs. Katherine O’Toole and Mr. Jesse Alling prepared and accompanied the students in their performances.

The Hopkinton Middle School String Trio earned a silver medal.

At the high school level, students in the vocal ensemble, Noteworthy, and the Cello Ensemble, under the direction of Mr. Isaac Brody, performed. The student members of Noteworthy are Tanisha Renjith, Anna Noroian, Aleksandre Japaridze, Aurora Lavigne, Caroline Rowe, Emily Mailloux, Evan Orenstein, Merin Rhodes and Kathryn Connolly. They performed the song “On The Pulse of This New Day” by Rollo Dilworth and won a gold medal. The Cello Ensemble performed “Over the Rainbow,” earning a silver medal, and its members are Lillian Gallagher, Emily Kimball, Camryn Franks, Leah Hong, Margot Kaye and Simrit Kukreja. Abigail Baskin, cello, participated in the solo festival and performed the Shostakovich Sonata in D Minor, opus 40, winning gold. Baskin was invited to perform at the Honors Performance on May 20 at Follen Church in Lexington.

The Jazz Ensemble performance at the Hatch Shell in Boston was the culmination of a very successful year. The students, under the direction of Mr. Jeremy Dodge, have consistently earned high ratings and were selected to be one of 19 groups invited to perform. Students in the HHS Jazz Ensemble are Natalie Bouffard, Erik Berlin, Prithvi Venkatesh, Alper Rozy, Camryn August, Brian Gu, Alex Stephan, Jayson DeLong, Sadie Wein, JJ Bahri, Evan Yurewicz, Adi Machiraju, Abhinav Vaddadi, Aman Kumar, Ryan Hwang, Lucas Pereira, Lily Brown, Sidhi Dhanda, Rathish Senthikumar, Alice Potapov, Abigail Baskin and Jordyn Ahlstrom-Hall.