OrchEstraCada

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About our Program

  OrchEstraCada is a multilevel orchestra for all ages. We have beginners, advanced players and experienced music teachers. Our rehearsals are held in three stages. All musicians participate for the first hour, as we warm up and build skills with exercises written for multilevel orchestra. Intermediate players are drilled in music theory for a few minutes while advanced players work one-on-one with the beginners. Then the beginners leave and the rest of the orchestra settles in for rehearsals of performance pieces.

Although we began with just strings, we now include brass, woodwinds, percussion and piano.

Our History

In 2006, Estacada Together and the Estacada School District successfully applied for a Community Music Partnership with the Oregon Symphony. In the 2006-7 school year, the Oregon Symphony provided this small community with ensemble performances and workshops for the schools and the town, culminating in a joint performance with local musicians in the high school gymnasium. Suddenly, there was an interest in string instruments and orchestral music that needed an outlet. OrchEstraCada was formed to meet that need.

For the 2007-8 year, the orchestra was part of the Estacada Community Schools. This year, it is sponsored by Estacada Together, and will be meeting in the Estacada Public Library Community Room.  

If you’re not a local, you may need to know that we pronounce our city’s name as “EsstuhKayduh”, so the orchestra is pronounced “OrkEsstruhKayduh.”    

Director Elaine Butler

Elaine Butler began performing as a vocal soloist at age four, started piano lessons at age 6, and began her violin training at the Portland Community Music Center at age 8. There she played with orchestras and ensembles, studied music theory, dictation, sight-singing, arranging and composing. When her family moved to Estacada in 1975, she continued to study piano and was a frequent pianist and vocal soloist for school and church, accompanist for solo competitions, and vocal competitor, finishing third in the state of Oregon for mezzo-soprano voice in both 1979 and 1980.

This website project is part of her degree completion in Psychology:Family Studies from Corban College.

Besides her work with OrchEstraCada and her private piano, voice, music theory and composition students, Elaine is the site manager for the Philip Foster Farm National Historic Site, is a substitute educational assistant for the Estacada School District, sings with the Estacada Madrigal Singers, and is a vocalist and pianist for the Estacada First Baptist Church Worship Band. She and her husband, Mike, have six children, ages 17 to 26.

Visit Elaine's Blog