Tri-M Music Honor Society performs at Saratoga Retirement Community
February 17, 2018
Members of music club Tri-M performed at the Saratoga Retirement Community on Feb. 17.
Jazz ensemble Katelyn Chen (10), Max Lee (10), Joshua Valluru (10), Bryan Wang (10) and Brendan Wong (10) performed a set of arrangements of jazz hits while string quintet Vishnu Jaisim (10), Hanoom Lee (10), Rakesh Nori (10), Rani Sheth (10) and Jeffrey Yang (10) performed Joseph Haydn’s “Emperor Quartet in C major” and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “String Quartet No. 2 in D major.”
A club revitalized this year by club co-presidents Jeffrey and Allie Yen (10), Tri-M aims to promote appreciation for music among both the Harker and Bay Area communities. Advised by instrumental music teacher Chris Florio, the club currently has 60 members and around 25 to 30 active members, who meet once a month to discuss plans for future events, such as performances and workshops.
“Around two years ago, the Class of 2016 had a pretty big Tri-M club, and they held performances during long lunch in the Bistro where they set up a few chamber groups mostly just to play for students there,” Jeffrey said. “After that, they started dialing down their activity so Allie and I talked to Mr. Florio about it, and he agreed that it would be a good idea to restart a music club.”
Tri-M’s active four performance ensembles rehearse and perform a variety of genres, including pop and classical. After finding scores online, members often arrange them to fit the performance needs of their group.
“I first joined Tri-M because I already do performing arts-related community service, and Tri-M is a great way to expand the musical aspect of that. At this event, I performed as the singer with a group of Harker jazz instrumentalists,” Katelyn said. “The audience seemed to really enjoy the songs we played since most of them were jazz standards such as ‘All of Me’ and ‘Misty.’ ‘Misty’ is the first jazz song I ever learned that made me come to appreciate and love this style of music.”
Tri-M will be performing at another senior center on April 14. During their club week from Oct. 23 to 27, the club fundraised for Music for Minors, a Bay Area music education organization providing music enrichment programs in preschool through elementary schools, by selling Tea Top pearl milk tea outside Manzanita.