Nicholas McIntyre has been arranging music on his own time since middle school.
This arranged music, however, is seeing the auditorium for the first time Tuesday at orchestra’s winter concert. McIntyre, a senior violinist with Bearden orchestra and Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra, arranged two pieces – “Sleigh Ride” and “All I Want for Christmas is You” – and approached Bearden Orchestra teacher Ms. Karen Russell about performing them.
“We were looking for pieces for our Christmas concert, and I said, ‘Hey, Ms. Russell, we should do these pieces that I arranged,’” McIntyre said. “It was just something I did for fun, and then we ended up playing it in orchestra.”
The concert is in the auditorium Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Since these songs are already written and popularized, McIntyre’s work involved separating the different parts for the different instruments and piecing them together to create a cohesive arrangement.
“It involved looking at other arrangements people had made and just figuring out how to arrange all the different parts of the music,” McIntyre said.
Ms. Russell has watched McIntyre progress through the program throughout the past four years.
“Nicholas has been an essential part of the BHS orchestra program for several years,” Ms. Russell said. “He has successfully auditioned for All-East Orchestra and All-State Orchestra and had earned the top chair in the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra program.
“In addition, Nicholas always brings a fun, positive attitude to class, and is encouraging and entertaining to have in class.”
McIntyre’s work is the most recent example of a Bearden orchestra student arranging a piece, but not the first. There have been a few other students that have arranged pieces for the orchestra’s library of music. McIntyre hopes that these arranged pieces will help the orchestra come together and have a successful winter concert.
“Because of the arrangements Nicholas has done, the winter concert is going to be more student-centered and upbeat than it would have been otherwise,” Ms. Russell said.