String Orchestra Music 2024-2025
String Orchestra Music 2024-2025
First Achievement Series - Grade ½
Bits of Stardust - Bruce W. Tippette
Nightmare on the Housetop - John M. Pasternak
Royal Feast - Chris Ferguson
Early Achievement Series - Grade 1
The Forbidden Temple - John M. Pasternak
Ships and Sailors - Jay Coles
Stegosaurus Stomp - Perry Holbrook
Achievement Series - Grade 1½
The Jolly Roger - Erica Donahoe
Trailbreaker - Doug Spata
Retake Rondo - John Dupuis
Achievement Plus Series - Grades 2-2½
Joy Ride - Doug Spata
Wild Stallions - Mark Lortz
Pine Tree Polka - Erica Donahoe
Antidote - Erica Donahoe
Ares - Jay Coles
Moonbeams - Gary Fagan
Concert Series - Grades 3-3½
A Christmas Couplet - Vince Gassi
Honorbound - Christian A. Williams
The Monoliths - George Sweet
Moroccan Nights - Erica Donahoe
Symphonic Series - Grades 4 & Up
Melodia Perpetua - John Dupuis
Composers of New String Orchestra Music
Jay Coles
Erica Donahoe
John Dupuis
Gary Fagan
Chris Ferguson
Vince Gassi
Perry Holbrook
Mark Lortz
John M. Pasternak
Doug Spata
George Sweet
Bruce W. Tippette
Christian A. Williams
Key to Selecting the Right Grade Level
Providing more accessible music at lower grade levels, in 2022 we expanded our Achievement and Achievement Plus series to four separate grade levels in the series. We also expanded our grading series upward, moving grade 3 into its own series (Concert Series) and grade 4 & up into a new series called the Symphonic Series. Achieving through music has never been easier with the expanded – and now color-coded – Wingert-Jones grading system.
- Playable by first year students with limited study
- Uses only the first six notes of the D Major Scale
- Moderate tempo and 4/4 time signatures
- All sections have an opportunity to play the melody
- Playable by first-year groups
- Keys of D and G; first position (Bass 3rd position); careful writing of low 2 for Violins and Violas while avoiding high 3
- Introducing 2/4 and 3/4 time signatures with whole, half, quarter and eighth note patterns with no syncopation
- Detache, pizzicato, staccato, legato and marcato bowings to expand your students' technique with the right hand
- Playable by 2nd year musicians
- Incorporates dotted quarter-notes and simple syncopated rhythms
- Expanded right hand technique of 2-note slurs, hooked bows and adjacent string crossings
- Open string double stops
- Playable by 2nd and 3rd year groups
- Introducing 6/8 time signatures
- New key signatures including C, A, F and Bb
- New positions for Violin, Cello and Bass
- More complex rhythms and fingered double stops
- Playable by advanced middle school and high school musicians
- Exploring higher positions for all strings
- Expanded literature for advancing programs
- Playable by high school musicians
- First Violins explore 5th position while second Violins and Violas move through 3rd position
- Cellos expand to 4th position while the Bass section works through 5th position