A few days before they were scheduled to perform in front of 20-or-so elementary-schoolers at the Rancho Peñasquitos Library, Justin Wu (12), Daeho Lee (12), Tai Hsu (12), and Nathan Mun (12) gathered together to arrange three pieces. As part of being library Music Ambassadors, their job is to perform at the library on weekends as an introduction to music. As the afternoon waned, they found themselves parsing over measures of Christmas carols and pieces of classical music. 

“We wanted to be festive in our music choices, because recognizable songs are more accessible to listeners,” Lee said. “We chose to go with songs like ‘Jingle Bells’ because we wanted to make sure everyone knew what was going on.”

The four’s role in the program involves introducing classical music and the instruments they play to an audience of younger students. During each of the three library performances so far, this hasn’t just involved playing music. Anticipating younger audience members who likely had never before been exposed to the intricacies of classical music, they prepared short presentations on each of their respective instruments. 

“One of the main goals of this program is really to showcase the beauty of what the cello, violin, clarinet, and saxophone can do,” Wu said. “We wanted to give a sense of the color of what we could play, not just apart, but together. We really want our audience to leave with a full understanding of the scope of sound that can be produced because we all understand that getting into music early can be hugely beneficial for later development.”

To improve their accessibility, they worked to showcase the range of musicianship they had. Given that the instruments they played were an unconventional combination, the four worked together to find a suitable way of highlighting the unique qualities of each instrument within each of the songs they had chosen. The low thrumming of Wu’s cello needed to be as recognizable as the golden hum of Lee’s violin, and the higher octaves of Mun’s clarinet deserved their own moment in the spotlight. A further complication was that Hsu had an alto, bass, and barry saxophone to perform with, so they needed to be able to incorporate all three, one in each song. 

“I think a lot of our focus was on making sure each instrument had its own moment,” Wu said. “One way we did that was in structuring a song so that each instrument was particularly recognizable in different parts of the song, so no one player was being showcased any more than the other.”

Even after they finalized the arrangements, their practice was essential so that each member of the quartet could contribute flawlessly to the overall performance.

“After we finished choosing our songs, our biggest priority was making sure everyone knew exactly what they were doing,” Lee said. “Our goal is really to give our audience members the best experience possible, and that means we also had to play our best.”

Their best is a quality of musicianship that has been honed by each of their hundreds of hours of dedicated practice. Each member of their quartet has been dedicated to music for at least five years and is a member of school bands or local youth orchestras. Hsu and Mun are both a part of GOLD, and Lee is a part of Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra (MMYO), while Wu performs with San Diego Youth Symphony (SDYS).

On the afternoon of Dec. 27, they brought the sum of this experience to the community space of the PQ Library. The showing was the second time they’d hosted such an event. To prepare and get out any nervous jitters, half an hour before anyone arrived, the library rang with the melody of a Christmas medley.

“We wanted to feel out the rhythm of things before anyone got there,” Wu said. “The nice thing about playing a song is that things only smooth out and mesh together the more you do it, and so you never really get tired of practicing the same thing over and over, especially if it’s something you arranged yourself.”