![Adding a tray of canned corn to the pile, junior Michael Collop assists in transporting donations for the Holiday Food Drive. The event, hosted schoolwide from Dec. 10-17, raised over 5,000 food items to deliver to the Parkway Food Pantry, helping several families in need. [The drive] is a great thing for us to do because you're giving to those who are less fortunate, and it helps provide for people who can't provide for themselves. [The] competition is always fun, too. It was fun to be in [social studies teacher Jess] Chazen’s class, because he always gets worked up over [the competition]. He made it exciting, and was always convincing us to turn in cans for the drive,” Collop said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/feature-photo-unsung-2.png)
![NEW CHALLENGE, NEW TEAM MEMBERS: Every season, VEX creates a new game that robotics team members are faced with and have to build a robot to compete in. This year’s game forces students to create a robot that is able to stack rings onto mobile goals in order to score points. The change in games each season is something that robotics teacher Audrea Moyers appreciates.
“One of the things that I like about VEX is that they have a new problem to solve every year,” she said. ¨Even though the equipment’s the same, they have to analyze the game, and they have to come up with solutions that are unique that year. They are using their knowledge from prior years, but they have to kind of redesign a problem.”
As returning teams were faced a new game, some new teams and members had to adapt to a uncommon playing field and game.
“Three of our four teams were competing for the first time this year, and they had very different experiences match to match, so I think they learned a lot,¨ she said. ¨It’s hard just watching a video online to know how it’s actually going to be in person, so they all learned a lot about what gameplay is like, how to work with an alliance partner [and] how to adapt during the day to changes.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_9283-1-1200x800.jpg)
When composing new music, senior Mikayla Lao starts with a simple melody that plays over and over in her head.
“I first started [composing] around 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic,” Lao said. “My piano teacher at the time was like ‘hey, you should try composing.’”
At the time, Lao had little experience composing, so her piano teacher suggested that she start with a chord progression, and then compose on top of that. Soon, Lao had written several pieces of music, composing the melodies using online music software such as Noteflight.
“I like composing because it’s just fun,” Lao said. “It’s a way to express my ideas and my creativity. Sometimes I have something stuck in my head and then I write it out because I can’t just let it sit in my head forever. Even if no one else is gonna see it, I just write it out.
Orchestra teacher Aaron Mynes first heard short compositions from Lao during the COVID-19 pandemic, when school was online, which he thought were catchy.
“Then when we were in person, that’s when I heard her playing the piano,” Mynes said. “It was not a piece I recognized, but it was lovely.”
When Mynes asked who wrote the piece, Lao said she had written it and Mynes said “[I was] floored. She progressed beyond just a piano piece to multiple instruments.”
Although Lao plays violin and piano, in her compositions she has written parts for piano, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, French horns, trumpets, trombones, tubas, harps, violins, violas, cellos, and basses.
“[Mikayla] is very accomplished,” Lao’s fellow violinist and stand partner, senior Vincent Nguyen, said. “Piano, violin, [she] took music theory last year and excelled. Very musically deft and very in tune. [She’s] definitely got it.”
During high school, Lao has had the opportunity to hear her pieces played by the orchestra and made adjustments to her compositions based on those experiences. The CHS orchestra performed what Lao considers to be her best piece, “La Noche Escarlata,” at the Halloween concert on Oct. 26, 2023. The composition is a Spanish, Flamenco style piece in A Phrygian mode, and is partly inspired by 19th Century composer Pablo de Sarasate’s piece “Carmen Fantasy.”
Lao submitted “La Noche Escarlata” to the 2023 Virginia Student Composition Festival in Richmond, which is part of an annual music conference sponsored by the Virginia Music Educators Association.
“I encouraged Mikayla to submit [the piece] for the live performance and told her that if it was accepted, I would find a way to get our orchestra to perform it,” Mynes said.
Two weeks prior to the November conference, Lao was notified that her piece was chosen and it was performed by members of the CHS orchestra. Many who have heard Lao’s piece have been surprised that it was composed by a high school student. According to Mynes, a composition professor from Randolph-Macon College emailed him to compliment the orchestra’s performance and ask if the piece was available for other groups to perform.
Lao hopes to continue studying music composition in college and her teachers at CHS are impressed by what she has already accomplished during high school.
“She’s just amazing and I’m really proud of her,” Mynes said. “And really, really glad that we were able to [perform her piece] and share this with the wider world, wider community.”
This story was originally published on The Purple Tide | The Knightly News on February 20, 2024.