Sedona Red Rock High School held its School Winter Concert and Student Showcase at the Sedona Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Dec. 14. The doors opened an hour before the orchestra took the stage for displays of student photography exhibits and Katharine Hill’s 12th-grade government class’ Civil Action Projects. For the latter projects, seniors chose community issues important to them, researched those topics and developed plans of action to resolve those issues.

This is the second year that Sedona-Oak Creek School District orchestra and music teacher Cody McKesson has been teaching in the district in addition to being the head coach of the varsity cross country team.

“I thought the concert went really well,” McKesson said. “It’s my second year here and the first year was spent kind of getting to know everybody. This year, I have good relationships with them. I thought that I was able to lean into that to get the kids to really like me as a person as well as the class, especially up in the middle schoolers, because that program I started when I first got there with about nine kids, and now I just got done talking to the guidance counselor and now I have like 32 kids in the class now, so it’s going pretty well.”

“I just work really well with the middle schoolers and also the elementary,” McKesson said. “Because there’s no real feeder program to get these kids into the music. But at the elementary school, the fifth-graders are going to go into sixth grade, and that’s when they can join my class. I have a lot of fun with the fifth-grade class, I joke around with them a lot and build good relationships with them and teach them the basics of violin when they feel confident to join the class. Because it can be very overwhelming to try. It’s like learning a new language. If they have the basics down, it won’t be so overwhelming when they get into the junior high.”

“We have 42 middle school kids interested in orchestra next semester,” SRRHS Principal Heather Isom said on Tuesday, Dec. 12. “We can’t accommodate all of them, but we never had that big of an interest in orchestra — 42 middle schoolers. It’s not just simple [material]. [McKesson’s] really pushing them.”

McKesson is also interested in working with members of the community to bring other musicians into the classroom in order to give the students the opportunity to practice as a full symphony because the SOCSD orchestra program is strings-based and lacks winds.

“I’m looking forward to next semester because my advanced orchestra has [seven] seniors,” McKesson said. “That’s going to be interesting, because we’ll go into a new phase with all of those advanced people graduating, and then the newer kids I’ve been working with and building up to take their spots eventually.”

McKesson added that he wants to make the seniors’ last concert with SOCSD in the spring a special occasion for them.

“One thing I’m doing, and I’ve talked to the students about it, is, I’m having them all listen to music and genres of music and tell me what they want [to perform],” McKesson said. “I’m hoping they will make the program and they will choose all the music. Then they’ll talk about why they chose that song.”

The orchestra performed “To a Wild Rose” by Edward MacDowell during the concert, which McKesson said would be one of his favorite memories from the fall semester.

“There’s a piece that I dedicated to my aunt, who recently passed away from cancer. and that was a really special moment for me to play that in honor of her,” McKesson said. “I thought she really embodied the character of a wild rose [by] just making the world a better, prettier place.”

Community members interested in collaborating with the SOCSD orchestra program can contact McKesson at (928) 204-6792 or mckesson@sedonak12.org.