Glendale music teachers to perform Beethoven at Walt Disney Concert Hall

Three Glendale Unified music teachers will join more than 130 professional musicians and other teachers to perform the music of Beethoven at the Walt Disney Concert Hall next week with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.

Glendale High teacher Amy Rangel, along with Roosevelt Middle School teacher Frank Fox and Wilson Middle School teacher Amanda Kopcsak-Svetich, will take part in a symposium next week with about 70 other teachers from across the country.

The two-day, free symposium will offer ways that music teachers can approach instructing students and it will culminate with the music teachers joining about 70 professional musicians in the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra to perform the composer’s Symphony No. 5, “Wellington’s Victory” and the overture to “Fidelio.”

Rangel, who oversees about 250 students at Glendale High who are part of the school’s bands and orchestras, will be playing the violin.

“I never would have thought I would have this kind of opportunity,” she said. “To have this chance, it’s spectacular. I’ve been practicing like crazy. I want to go up there and nail it.”

Along with Rangel, Fox will play the French horn and Kopcsak-Svetich will play the violin.

The free, 40-minute concert will be presented at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

Rangel’s students come to her at Glendale High after they have learned under Fox at Roosevelt and Kopcsak-Svetich at Wilson.

The symposium will stress the importance of teachers helping students achieve social and musical success, and provide ways teachers can better assess each student’s musical ability.

“Anything I can do as their music teacher to help them be more successful in life I want to do,” Rangel said. “I’m excited to learn [the symposium participants’] secrets and then try them out on our students.”

In the audience Wednesday night will be many of Rangel’s students, as well as her colleagues’ students, who will see their teachers perform for the first time in a professional setting.

“A lot of my students have gone online to get free tickets. A lot of students will watch their teachers become famous. It will put us in a different light,” she said. “We all became musicians long before we became teachers.”