El Centro’s Southwest strings a source of community pride

Southwest High School String Orchestra added a trophy to its collection yet again; this time from a national competition.

Fresh off its second-place victory at the national American String Teachers Association’s National Orchestra Festival on March 5 in Santa Monica, the orchestra now sets its sights on wowing judges at the Southern California School Band & Orchestra Association festival on March 16 at Long Beach Polytechnic High School. This marks the second year in a row the orchestra has placed in the top three at the American String Teachers Association music festival. Last year the group was awarded a third-place trophy in Atlanta out of 15 participating orchestras from all over the United States. This year the competition included 18 orchestras.

JOSELITO VILLERO PHOTO Southwest High School orchestra conductor Matthew Busse (center) rehearses D. Shostakovich’s Symphony for Strings Op. 118a with his students Tuesday at Southwest.

“It’s all about giving (the students) the mindset that they can achieve,” said Matthew Busse, the group’s director, who admittedly sets the bar pretty high for his students.

“These are upper-echelon pieces that these kids learn. The same pieces that some professional groups are playing,” Busse said. “These kids love to perform. We’ve got a good orchestra program.”

These young Southwest musicians earned a “superior” rating by the judges.

“We just get better at every performance,” 18-year-old Southwest senior violist Sandy Sanchez said.

“It was a learning experience that we will remember for a lifetime,” Brett Byrd, a 15-year-old violinist who is a Central Union High School student, said.

“We like performing for people even though they don’t always appreciate our music,” cellist Keegan Cervantes, an 18-year-old Southwest senior, said.

JOSELITO VILLERO PHOTO Chandler Sinclair, 18, (right) plays the viola during rehearsal.

“I feel that it is about time that the community recognizes this group as a nationally recognized source of pride for this community,” Busse said, since “the group has made remarkable achievements and has a history of success.” The “history of success” Busse refers to was the Carolyn Sechrist era of the Southwest High orchestra. Sechrist, now retired, led the orchestra to numerous music festivals throughout the United States and Canada. When Sechrist retired in 2005 there were about 70 string players at Southwest “and something like 200 students altogether (in both districts),” Sechrist said.

Today the orchestra program under Busse hopes to expand the program by bringing in new students and setting up a feeder system from all the middle schools in the region.

“I’d like to start a youth orchestra in the Valley,” Busse said.

And Busse might just be the person to do it since he helped lead his community orchestra from Houston to a seven-city music tour of China in 2004.

“It just goes to show you that anything’s possible,” Busse said.