Brooke Wohlrabe Above: Members of the summer symphony orchestra rehearse inside Fairmont High School’s orchestra classroom. The perfromance will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 22 at the Red Rock Center for the Arts in Fairmont.

FAIRMONT — Thirty community members will be performing in a summer symphony orchestra at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 22, at the Red Rock Center in Fairmont. The public is invited to attend.

The orchestra is being directed by Fairmont High School’s band teacher Kate Kallenbach and orchestra teacher Katie Koenning.

Koenning said they actually had their first summer symphony in 2019, but they took last year off due to COVID-19. She shared how it first got started.

“It was suggested to me when we got a grant from the Schmeeckle Foundation in 2018,” Koenning said referring to the $50,000 grant the district received in order to purchase new band and orchestra instruments.

The intention of the gift was to not only have instruments available for students to use, but the community as well.

In order to get the word out to interested participants, Koenning said she let all of the orchestra and band students know about the opportunity and it was also put in the CER catalog.

“What we have is a nice community orchestra full of people of all ages. There are people who have done a year of junior high orchestra and then people who have been playing their whole life. It’s cool to have all of these people together,” Koenning said.

Koenning said the group of 30 includes a father-daughter duo, some siblings, a married couple and a bunch of friends.

“There’s all of these people I know from different walks of life playing instruments together and on my part, it’s kind of surreal,” Koenning said.

One student partaking in the summer symphony is Lilly Laven, who will be a junior at Fairmont High School this coming school year. She will play the cello in the summer symphony.

Laven said she heard about it from Koenning, her teacher, while in class during the school year and thought it sounded fun.

“It’s a really good learning experience. There’s a lot of different music and it’s fun to get to know more people and play with them in a big group,” Laven said.

Andrew Hoaglund, a lawyer in town, has played the violin for 27 years, starting at age 5. He shared why he was drawn to the summer symphony.

“I love playing music and so many people reminisce of the great experiences they had playing in school but there’s not many opportunities as we get older. Summer symphony cultivates lifelong enjoyment of music,” Hoaglund said.

Hoaglund has been living in Fairmont for about three years and didn’t hear of opportunities to play when he got here. He would like to see the summer symphony continue each year.

“It’s a really good way for people who play music to contribute to the community. Kids can learn a lot from more experienced players and it’s a great refresher for the experienced players. It’s good for everybody,” Hoaglund said.

The group has been meeting for an hour every Monday and Thursday evening since early June.

“Most people have their own instrument but we do have them available to use. Some of the bigger instruments are annoying to carry so we have those available,” Koenning said.

Koenning said picking music was difficult since she didn’t know what instruments people would be able to play.

“I grabbed a variety of pieces. We have some Pirates of the Caribbean, some polka music, classical and West Side Story since that movie remake is coming out later this year. We did a little bit of everything and will end up with five or six pieces for the show,” Koenning said.

Koenning said she would like to do another summer symphony next year and if people are interested in joining she suggests they reach out to her by sending an email to koenning.katie@gmail.com in order to get their name on a contact list.