When orchestra director Miriam Edgar thought about what her students will play at the Tour of Schools she remembered her time as an elementary student listening to the high schoolers play at the concert.

Edgar said the Tour of Schools is a time for the orchestra goes to the elementary students and explains what the orchestra program is about.

“What we do is take the entire orchestra and we go to each elementary school and put on a mini concert and then we talk about each of the instruments and how they are different,” Edgar said. “Then we play a couple of songs and there is usually time for (a) couple of questions at the end.”

Sophomore Claire Kaiserman said seeing the different instruments at Tour of Schools stuck out to her as a pleasant memory.

“We show off all of our instruments to the little kids. We (say) ‘this is a cello and these are its strings,’ and I like doing that for the little kids,” Kaiserman said.

Edgar said she remembered when she was a student at Park watching the high schoolers play.

“I remember one of the songs that (the high schoolers) played was called “Popcorn” and it was like an old ’80s synthesizer song. I thought it was the coolest thing,” Edgar said.

Kaiserman said seeing the high schoolers sparked her interest in the orchestra program.

“I remember thinking (the high schoolers performance) was really cool and it was something that got me interested in orchestra,” Kaiserman said.

Edgar said the younger children are happy when the time comes for the high schoolers to play their music.  

“Kids get excited (when) they see their older siblings or people that babysit them,” Edgar said.

Junior Ian McIntyre said he remembered when the high schoolers came when he was in eighth grade.

“(High schoolers) came when I was in eighth grade and I really appreciated that because my brother was in it, and I laughed at him, but it was so great seeing him up there,” McIntyre said.

Edgar said she picks the songs based on what the younger students will enjoy listening to.

“We do fun stuff that the kids recognize or other things that are fun,” Edgar said.

McIntyre said his freshman year the orchestra played songs from “Frozen” at the Tour of Schools.

“Freshman year we played music from “Frozen” like a compilation and the minute we start playing all the kids started screaming,” McIntyre said. “We had kids that sang along every time and by the end of the day we were just like ‘let’s just finish this.’ We all hated “Frozen” by the end.”

The Tour of Schools is 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. April 28 at all Park elementary schools.