Highland/Etling Orchestra Sheet Music

Teachers keep coming back to Richard Meyer's Dragonhunter and Night Shift, both Grade 1 pieces that work equally well as concert openers or closer material. Mark Williams' Fiddles on Fire offers Grade 1 students energetic, engaging writing. At the higher end, Yukiko Nishimura's Orchid (Grade 3) provides a bridge to more sophisticated scoring without sacrificing musical interest.

Recent additions include Michael Hopkins' Alpine Adventure, Kathryn Griesinger's Waterfalls, and Caryn Wiegand Neidhold's Midnight Vortex, all published in June 2026. Tchaikovsky's Mother Ginger joins the collection alongside a new edition of Brahms' Little Academic Festival Overture arranged for Highland/Etling orchestras.

Richard Meyer spent 35 years teaching strings at elementary through high school levels, including 22 years directing the orchestras at Oak Avenue Intermediate School in Temple City, California, where he grew the program from 29 students to 200. His compositions like Dragonhunter reflect deep classroom experience and accessibility for young players. Bob Phillips is a pedagogue and conductor whose Sound Innovations series and other works shape string education across the country, with thousands of students performing his pieces annually. Doug Spata, trained as a clarinetist, pivoted to composing primarily for strings through his work as an orchestra teacher, developing a style that appeals equally to students and audiences. Andrew H. Dabczynski is Emeritus Professor of Music Education at Brigham Young University, where he founded the BYU New Horizons Orchestra as both a performance ensemble and training ground for string teachers.