# How Many People?



## Quaverion

I just started in a chamber orchestra at Canisius College, and discovered that there are only 19 people in it. My previous high school orchestra had about 40 strings in it. How many people does your string orchestra have?


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## Nox

...don't have a string orchestra...

...my adult orchestra has about 50 in total...


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## Daniel

11-20 - It is a school and friends ensemble, nothing big or special.


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## becky

I'm not in an orchestra/ensemble ... and it turns out I'm not really good enough for our community orchestra, so I won't be getting in it for a real long time, if ever. They're all retired professionals! I can't compete with that!


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## Quaverion

Oh man, that's tough. Maybe you could start your own ensemble.


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## max

Well it depends on the orchestra...

The Penn State Philharmonic goes anywhere from 85 members and up depenidng on the instruments needed...

The PSU Chamber Orchestra is approximately 25 members...

The PSU Baroque Ensemble is aprox. 15 members.

It really depends on the music being performed...


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## Harvey

High school orchestra, about 60 members. That's only the strings.


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## Daniel

60 string-players? Wow!


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## max

that's nothin, my high school had over 100 string players.... about 30 of them could play, and out of those maybe 3 that could play at a decent level...

HENCE, I was NOT a member!


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## Daniel

If I would imagine that here! 100 string players. Our school has around 1100 students and then 100 scratching around, anyway I am always happy when the beginners orchestra is done with teir scratching....LOOOOOOOOOL. The ensemble (you can't call it orchestra) I am in, there we are only a few students, we have mostly friends of the high school...


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## Julia

Hello, my first post on this site! I have played in many different orchestras, mostly in chamber orchestras, of about 20 strings.

Most recently (about six years ago!), I played in two orchestras here, one was a symphony orchestra, horribly lacking in violas, so we had to bus in some professionals for our concerts; the other was a chamber orchestra (we put on a concert version of Dido and Aeneas)

I must say I prefer the repertoire of chamber orchestras.

Bye for now......

Julia


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## Quaverion

Hello Julia. Welcome to the forums!  You are the first french person here so far. You should take a look at "Le Thread Francais" to see how smart we are here.  How many years have you been playing?


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## Daniel

Bonjour, Julia! 

What chamber-repertoire is your favourite then? Any preferences?

Enjoy the site, and hope to see you here quite often! 

Greetings,
Daniel


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## Josef Haydn

Harvey said:


> High school orchestra, about 60 members. That's only the strings.


I would kill for a string section like that. In ritain the schools are obviously smaller but if we didn't hve so many flutes, clarinets and trumpets, we'd be able to stick some folk with a violin
PS no offence to flutes as a people, they are nice instruments just too many people play them!


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## Edward Elgar

I agree with you there! Flute and Bb guys are taking over! They need to be stopped at all costs! Long live concert pitch!


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