orchestra
Pluralorchestras
- 1A large group of musicians who perform together on various instruments, usually including strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion; also, the instruments the group plays.
The orchestra rehearsed the symphony for weeks before opening night.
Several orchestras across Europe commissioned new works from the young composer.
Similarensemble
Note
A word that began on a dancing floor: through Latin from Greek orkhēstra, built on a verb meaning "to dance," it named the chorus's floor in Greek theaters before the players inherited it. It stretches easily to any coordinated din. Railway Magazine in 1941 called a guard's horn, a stationmaster's bell and an engine's whistle "quite an orchestra." In Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs (2015), Jobs boasts, "I play the orchestra."
- 2In a theater or concert hall, the area directly in front of the stage and below it, where the musicians sit and other performers sometimes also appear.
The conductor stepped down into the orchestra and raised his baton.
During intermission, a soloist climbed out of the orchestra onto the stage.
Similarpit
- 3A semicircular space in front of the stage in ancient Greek and Hellenistic theaters, used by the chorus.
The chorus entered the orchestra and began their ode to the gods.
Stone seats rose in a curve above the orchestra where the performers gathered.
Note
A term from theater history, not music. Here the orchestra is a place, the floor where the chorus sang and danced, as its Greek name suggests. Writers on classical theaters occasionally use the rare Latin plural orchestrae, though orchestras is the ordinary form. Context has to carry the setting. A chorus entering the orchestra stands on that ancient floor, not in the modern musicians' area.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Latin orchēstra, which was itself taken from Ancient Greek ὀρχήστρα (orkhḗstra), a derivative of ὀρχέομαι (orkhéomai, "to dance").