Ventura High School receives unanimous gold ratings at Rancho Campana Music Festival

Wind Ensemble I, Wind Ensemble II Honors and String Orchestra II Honors all received the highest rating

Katie Rundle

On March 9, VHS’ Wind Ensemble I and Wind Ensemble II Honors attended the Rancho Campana Music Festival and received superior gold ratings. The next day, the String Orchestra II Honors attended and received the same rating, 90 to 100 percent, based on performance and level of difficulty. VHS has received unanimous gold ratings every year over the past 14 years at the Camarillo festival.

Ratings were decided by adjudicators who are professional musicians and long-time music educators.

There were 28 schools present at the event, which was three days long, although VHS only attended two days as they were able to fit all three groups performing into that timespan.

VHS music director and teacher Paul Hunt said,

“The Rancho Campana Music Festival is where local schools participate through the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association. Similar to sports and CIF, SCSBOA is our organization. Four adjudicators listen to groups from throughout SoCal and rate them based on their performance and level of difficulty. Our Wind Ensemble

II Honors and String Orchestra

II Honors entered the highest classification (Level six - Collegiate/Professional Level). Wind Ensemble I entered at [a] basic high school classification.”

Wind Ensemble I performed “Anthem for Winds and Percussion,” by Claude T. Smith, “Luna,” by Yukiko Nishimura and “Amparito Roca,” by Jaime Texidor. Oboe player Adeline Vertucci ‘25 said, “I have been playing music for seven years. I think we performed really well, there were some things that didn’t really go as planned but overall it was one of our best performances. I didn’t expect to get the rating we did just because there were some things we could’ve done better. I’ve only done one other festival and it was very different from this one, the way the judges judged things was different and [this festival] felt a lot more real than the other festival I did.”

Wind Ensemble II performed “Lyrical Fantasy,” by Hirokazu Fukushima and “Vigils Keep,” by Julie Giroux.

Saxophone player Reese Whitley ‘23 said, “I thought the performance went well, we did perform at 9 p.m. so we were all starting to get a little tired, but we persevered and did the best we could. I think overall everyone had a great time.

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When Bong Joon Ho’s 2019 film “Parasite” became the first foreign movie to win best picture at the 92nd Oscars, many knew that a pivotal point in Hollywood had come. The film, which grossed $263 million worldwide, was an introduction for many to the world of Korean cinema. Its commentary on social classes made it fitting to be the film that appealed to the masses rather than solely the arthouse fanatics that foreign movies had interested previously, paving the way for French film “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” to become a hit in the U.S. It also encouraged diversity in American filmmaking, as seen with “Everything Everywhere all at Once,” where some of the dialogue is in Mandarin or Cantonese.

Emily Sehati ‘24 said, “I think foreign films are one of the few ways that we can learn about a culture, its values and way of life in an intimate way. We are able to expose ourselves to different art forms that we wouldn’t typically see in America.”

The groundbreaking success of “Parasite” was almost inevitable, given its careful attention to detail and universal subject matter. Ho, the film’s director, meticulously storyboarded every scene from the movie and leaped between genres when writing the dialogue, a practice South Korean films have been doing for years, but Hollywood films refuse to adopt. South Korean films have also been praised for their originality, with “Train to Busan” or “The Host” proving that horror and morality can coexist, while most Hollywood hits are adaptations or part of a franchise and don’t provide any substance beyond being entertaining.

Although “Parasite” has greatly influenced the culture of cinema in the U.S. in more recent years, foreign films, most notably Asian films, have influenced Western movies for decades. Akira Kurosawa, a Japanese filmmaker, was cited by George Lucas as being a major inspiration for Star Wars, with his samurai iconography inspiring the lightsaber and Jedi garb and his wipe transitions becoming a defining feature of the saga. Kurosawa’s film “Seven Samurai” was also a direct influence on the 1960 spaghetti western “The Magnificent Seven.” Wong Kar Wai, a Chinese filmmaker, inspired Quentin Tarantino’s bold, comicbook like color palettes with his vibrant and saturated colors that he is renowned for in addition to inspiring the framing of numerous scenes in Barry Jenkins’ film “Moonlight.”

The main reason for the success and originality of foreign films over the decades has been the lack of Hollywood commercial constraints, which has allowed foreign directors to express themselves more freely than American directors. When it comes to Korean cinema, however, filmmaker Park Chan Wook points to Squid Game creators Hwang Dong-hyuk and Ho, both in college during South Korea’s struggle for democracy in the 1980s. He emphasizes this as a factor behind the nation’s reputation for producing works that are highly attuned to issues of social class and political struggle.

Faith Cherry ‘24 said, “I’ve seen [‘Squid Game’ and ‘Parasite’] and they’re pretty baller, so they made me want to watch more films like them.”

“Squid Game” and “Parasite” are two pieces of Korean cinema that crossed the barrier of subtitles with modern American audiences and became major hits.

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