Orchestra

2023-24 Performance Season

Repertoire Orchestra

Prerequisite: None

Repertoire Orchestra is the preparatory orchestra of the high school orchestral program; it will serve to develop the musical skills that are a prerequisite for membership in Sinfonia. Emphasis will be placed on improving individual technique, tone production, ensemble skills, ear training and sight-reading. All Repertoire Orchestra members will participate in the regularly scheduled high school orchestral concerts.

Sinfonia

Prerequisite: Audition scheduled individually with the high school director

Designed for freshmen through seniors, Sinfonia will serve to develop the musical skills that are a prerequisite for membership in the PHS Orchestra. Emphasis will continue to be placed on developing individual technique, tone production, ensemble skills, ear training and sight-reading. All Sinfonia members will participate in the regularly scheduled high school orchestra concerts.

PHS Orchestra

Prerequisite: Audition scheduled individually with the high school director

Designed for advanced musicians, the PHS Orchestra provides the opportunity to study and perform the varied orchestral literature of the 17th through the 21st centuries. In addition, emphasis will continue to be placed on developing individual technique, tone production, ensemble skills, ear training, and sight-reading. Repertoire will vary annually.

Tours 

Touring is an important part of music director Robert Loughran's overall vision for the Princeton High School Orchestra. He believes that in addition to broadening their educational horizons, touring gives his orchestral students a sense of perspective as they face the multitude of challenges that today's world presents. During the 2018 season, the PHS Orchestra will be touring London, Brussels, Verbier, Bern, and Paris. 

Since 1996, the orchestra has embarked oneleven international tours that have taken the musicians to England, Scotland, Italy, France, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, China and Argentina. Their performance locations have included England's Gloucester Cathedral, St. Giles Cathedral of Edinburgh, Chiesa del Redentore of Venice, the Kursaal of Bad Gastein, Chiesa di Provenzano of Siena, the Church of St. Filippo & Giacomo of Cortina díAmpezzo, the Kursaal of Bad Woerishofen, Geneva's Auditoire de Calvin, the Klosterkirche of Engelberg, Megève's Eglise Saint Jean Baptiste, the Conservatoire de Musique, Danse et Théâtre du Grand Avignon, the Qingdao International School of Shandong, the Shanghai Community International School, the Villa Ocampo and Plaza Francia of Buenos Aires, the Eglise de Verbier, Paris' Eglise de la Madeleine, the World International Property Organization Headquarters in Geneva, and Brussels' Palais des Beaux-Arts. 

Honored as a United States Fund for UNICEF Ambassador for its UNICEF Benefit Concert produced in 2007, the Princeton High School Orchestra enjoys being both a musically sensitive and socially proactive ensemble in the USA and abroad. The orchestra has been invited, on several occasions, to perform during the New Jersey Governor's Convocation for Excellence in Teaching. While in Scotland in 2002, the orchestra teamed up with a Dunfermline community music organization to raise funds for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster. In 2007, Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Paul Roby and Princeton composer Ira Mowitz collaborated with the orchestra in a concert to raise lifesaving funds for children around the world through the UNICEF organization. In a concert organized by UNICEF Agentina in 2012, the orchestra performed for the medical staff and patients at the Ramon Sarda Maternity Hospital of Buenos Aires. 
 

Meet the Director

Robert Loughran, Director of the Orchestral Program at Princeton High School, has led the PHS Orchestra on numerous international tours performing in England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Italy, France, China and Argentina. Mr. Loughran has also been active as conductor of the pit orchestra for Spectacle Theatre's spring musicals.  

In addition to his teaching responsibilities at Princeton High School, he is the music director of the Youth Orchestra of Bucks County, and has served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Among the orchestras that Mr. Loughran has conducted are the Main Line Symphony, Temple University's Gifted Young Musicians Baroque Orchestra, the Riverside Symphonia and the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia.

Mr. Loughran holds degrees from Gettysburg College and Northwestern University, and has studied at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Mr. Loughran has studied conducting with Joseph Barone, founder of L'École Monteux, and Herbert Blomstedt, Conductor Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Contact

Robert Loughran, Music Director 
609.806.4280 x 3093
RobertLoughran@princetonk12.org