Beaver Forte is a new club (unofficial, but they’re hoping for official recognition soon) where orchestra students sign up for a semester at a time to play a wider variety of music.

Students select all of the music they play, and they play a variety of genres such as jazz, pop, Latin, rock, as well as classical.

An interesting aspect of the club is that all of the members are willing to use electric instruments rather than acoustic.

While they’re hoping to get more gigs in the future, they’ve already performed in multiple places including the 2022 JROTC Military Ball and performed for the elementary students at Dutch Ridge.

This year, Beaver Forte also is planning to perform at the Beaver Valley Mall for the Jaycee Craft Fair and hopefully for the Beaver Area High School music department’s recital.

There are currently only six members of Beaver Forte including senior Audrey Maize, junior Amara Stewart, and freshmen Ehrin Maloney, Katina Playa, Shawn Bouwers, and Eric Bouwers.

The members of Beaver Forte are very excited for the opportunity to play their instruments in a non-classroom setting.

Shawn Bouwers said, “It is a great option for people who can’t play with the in school orchestra because of sports, classes and other activities.”

It is also a great opportunity to have fun and play music that the students choose.

“I was interested in Beaver Forte because I needed more music to practice and wanted a challenge. One great thing about it is that the students get to pick the music, so we can find music that reflects what we want to play,” continued Bouwers.

Beaver Forte practices every Wednesday from 2:45–4 p.m.