Bravo!

Darlington School is always proud to host the Rome Symphony Orchestra’s summer pops concert at the A.J. Huffman ’67 Memorial Athletic Center. Every June, music enthusiasts pack their picnic baskets, gather their friends and come to our campus to hear the oldest symphony in the South. But this year’s event was particularly exciting for Darlington because our instrumental director, William Camp, and a group of his students were part of the performance!

 

According to this excerpt of a guest column published in the Rome-News Tribune on June 12, I was not the only one blown away by their performance:

 

“It is quite a tribute to the music department of Darlington School that 14 of their musicians were invited to join conductor Richard Prior and the professionals of the Rome Symphony Orchestra for its recent pops concert. What was most impressive, and probably not to be equaled by many private preparatory schools, was its contribution of nine string players, whose music director was the conductor for the first half of the program. … The opening, the Overture to Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute,” is a standard curtain-raiser and was given a solid reading by guest conductor William Camp. His musicians were certainly equal to the task set before them, and he had the orchestra fully within his grasp…”

 

The column was written by Bradford Gooch of Rome, who taught at Suffield Academy in Connecticut and is a former choir conductor, and in my humble opinion it speaks volumes about our instrumental program at Darlington. You may read the full text of the column by downloading the PDF at the top right of this page.

For high school students to be invited to play alongside professional musicians in a setting such as this one, for an audience that expects greatness, is such an honor and an experience I know they will never forget. Bravo to Mr. Camp and his students for a job well done!