CELEBRATION ORCHESTRA
July 31 - August 9, 2025

We just returned from a great project to Guatemala with the Celebration Orchestra. This project was led by Patrick Worsham, from Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX, who did a phenomenal job leading our team. He is a saxophone player himself, and played the soprano sax solo on “Open The Eyes Of My Heart” (see video further down). More than half of our team was comprised of people from Patrick’s church, and we loved being with them!

Our first concert was at the National Conservatory of Music “Germán Alcántara”. They are celebrating their 150th anniversary for the month of August, and invited us to kick off the celebration. Many graduates of this Conservatory go on to perform in the symphony.

One of the Conservatory’s defining features is the abstract artwork that adorns the walls, created by Guatemalan artist, Efraín Recinos. His murals portray nearly 90 different people from music, literature, and the arts, including Beethoven, Bach, Van Gogh, and Gershwin (see the last picture below).

One of our primary purposes for this project was to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Radio Cultural TGN; the largest Christian radio station in Guatemala. It was an honor for them to invite us, as it reflects the relationships built over the years of us serving in Guatemala and the impact these projects have had.

The concert was more than just music - it was a celebration of God’s work in Guatemala and a reminder of the calling we all share. With a packed audience, professional production, and powerful worship, it became one of the defining moments of our project. The video of the full concert is below.

We participated in several workshops while in Guatemala, including conducting sectionals at the School of Arts at San Carlos University. These workshops were such a meaningful way to connect one-on-one with students. It’s amazing how unifying music is even if you don’t speak the same language.

After our workshops, their marimba players treated us to a mini concert! The marimba is the national instrument of Guatemala, and many people in Guatemala make their living playing marimba.

After the workshops, we performed a concert for their students and faculty. Some of the University’s advanced students played with us for the concert. We’ve received several nice compliments from the faculty about how much they appreciated us working with their students, and the principal is already planning for us to come again!

Another highlight for us was working with the Youth Municipal Symphony Orchestra in Villa Nueva. This orchestra is run by the city and is an after school program for middle and high school kids. They are led by Gerardo, who we first met in 2018 as a young trumpet player in Coro Filarmonico (Manuel & Pedro’s group). Since then, he’s grown up into a fine young man and is now the conductor of this orchestra.

We loved doing workshops with these students and getting to know them. We had a TON of strings (see below)! After the workshops we did a concert for them. Even the rain didn’t get them down!

We always try to include at least one song that is native to the country we’re going to. In this case, we played “Luna de Xelaju”, which is as popular as the Guatemalan national anthem.

It was fun seeing the crowd’s reaction once they recognized the song since we didn’t introduce it beforehand. You can see for yourself in the video below.

All in all, it was a fantastic project. We love coming back to Guatemala year after year and building on the connections with our Guatemalan friends. Special thanks to our mission partner, Heber Morales, who always does a great job at creating new opportunities for each project while maintaining our ongoing connections. We can’t wait to return in February with Metro Big Band!