A middle school orchestra spent a semester blending their classical style with a local blues guitarist.
Recently, Thayer J. Hill Middle School’s gym was filled with the sound of strings, both classical and acoustic.
The harmony of genres came from the Hill orchestra’s artist in residence with Greg Boerner, a solo rock, blues, and folk musician.
Boerner jumped at the opportunity when one of his fans and orchestra teacher, Loretta Valentin, reached out to him.
Since January, the Hill orchestra and Boerner collaborated and arranged some of his original songs for this performance.
“I had never heard my songs with any orchestration of any kind, with any kind of string pieces at all or any kind of orchestration. So to have that, all of a sudden I’m singing my song and that swell comes up behind me of strings was really fun for me and really gratifying. So it was fun to hear it. I just felt like it took my music to another level,” said Boerner.
The Hill orchestra also performed solos and their original arrangement of songs from the movie “La La Land”.
Greg Boerner, although originally from Georgia, now lives in Aurora, and actively performs throughout the Midwest.
Naperville News 17’s Christine Lena reports.
