Orchestra students from the whole West Potomac Pyramid and their families gathered in the Kogelman theater at seven on Wednesday, June 14 at 7 pm.

The occasion was The West Potomac Pyramid Concert, where students from elementary, middle, and high school classes gather in jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts to perform their final concert of the year. The Carl Sandburg orchestras were conducted by Ms. Yessenia Amaya, while the West Potomac Orchestras were conducted by Ms. Alicia Day-Javkhlan. The songs were accompanied by percussionists Kendell Haywood and Ben Irwin. The program had a dozen songs total.

“Sweet Child of Mine,” by Guns N’ Roses, gave the West Potomac Concert orchestra some trouble at the beginning, but they restarted it and did great once they found their footing. Everything the West Potomac Symphonic Orchestra had a part in playing was golden, especially “My Shot,” from Hamilton, which was blessed with talented singing accompaniment from the Theater Department: Juniors Tony Lemus, Julian Worth, and Josh Stein were loud and powerful, leading the Orchestra in my favorite song of the night. While nothing else quite stood up to “My Shot,” “Kashmir,” created by Led Zeppelin and arranged by Tim McCarrick, was a huge success when performed by the Sandburg Chamber Orchestra, and the finale of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” was powerful stuff.

Students from every grade across the pyramid got up on stage to play in the last song, and the concert ended with Director Javkhlan welcoming the rising freshmen who will join Orchestra in the 2017-2018 school year. After the new students were welcomed with chocolate bars and balloons, some parents came up on the stage to clean up chairs and stands left in disarray while everyone else left.