It’s another banner year for the Bowdoin Orchestra, with membership levels now at an all-time high. “It’s been amazing watching the orchestra grow” said director George Lopez, who’s also the Beckwith Artist in Residence. “Six years ago, there were twenty-three members, now we’re beyond seventy. It’s really exciting!”

“I’ve been in an orchestra since middle school,” says flute player Nana Hayami ’22, “and I love creating music with other people.” Fellow first-year Prithvi Gunturu also enjoys the collaborative aspect—and he says it’s fun. “Every orchestra has a different character, and this one is very lively and easygoing.”

The orchestra’s growth is mirrored by a similar explosion in the number of students taking part in music, one way or another. Department chair Professor Vineet Shende says a full third of the student body is now involved in music at Bowdoin. That, he says, is unprecedented.

Bowdoin College writer and multimedia Tom Porter visited the orchestra at its annual retreat in mid-September 2018, at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center.

The Bowdoin Orchestra is holding its annual concert on December 6. The program will include the Rimsky-Korskakov tone poem Scheherazade, which you can see the orchestra rehearsing in the above video feature.