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Since PACO’s founding in 1966, several thousand students have moved through its orchestras, from SuperStrings all the way to Senior PACO. Along the way, they have grown into serious musicians with a deep love of chamber music and orchestral playing, and they have formed friendships in rehearsals, on tours, PACO camp and more that have lasted decades. Some went on to music careers; many more carried music with them into every other path in life.
Nowhere has this been clearer than at PACO’s anniversary celebrations over the years, including this year’s 60th, when alumni from every decade of the orchestra’s history came together to catch up, meet fellow alumni, and play music together. Players who learned under founder William Whitson, students from Ben Simon’s twenty-year tenure, and today’s musicians under Scott Krijnen all shared the same stage. Old stand partners picked up right where they left off, as if no time had passed, and alumni separated by sixty years discovered how much of the PACO experience they had in common.
Officially, PACO ends with high school graduation. But for many of us, it never really does. It remains part of who we are.
If you wish to get in touch with fellow alums, please reach out by email at info@pacomusic.org to get started.
There are also a variety of social media accounts where you can meet up with PACO alums and see what is currently happening with PACO today. Check them out below.
PACO Encore
PACO Encore
PACO is over? Although their PACO days are over, that doesn’t mean that their days of playing well with others are over!
PACO Encore is a program that brings our alumni back together to play for people in the community and for each other.
PACO Encore was created by a PACO student musician and was inspired by the fact that although our graduates go on to do many different things in life, both in and outside of music, they’ve kept their love of music and playing with others. PACO alumni have a special bond that only started at PACO. We are excited to introduce PACO Encore to give our alumni a way to continue connecting through music, while also sharing the gift of music with the community.
To our PACO Alumni: This is an amazing opportunity to stay connected with fellow PACO graduates, to reconnect with people you haven’t seen in a while, and to meet fellow alumni doing something we all love, while also bringing music and joy into the community!
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