“By the age of 16 or 17, members of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Accelerando Strings ensemble have been practicing the violin or cello for 10 years or more,” writes Patty Wetli at Tuesday’s (2/25) DNAinfo.com (Chicago). “That training was evident during a recent concert at Amundsen High School, where the young musicians expertly tackled Bach and Beethoven. Amundsen’s advanced string orchestra took the stage after the youth orchestra and countered with the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major. While perhaps less masterful, the performance was all the more impressive given that few if any of Amundsen’s students had put bow to string before reaching high school, and many had been placed in the orchestra simply to fulfill Chicago Public Schools’ music requirement.… For the second year in a row, Amundsen was chosen by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra as its partner for a joint concert at a CPS neighborhood school. … Parents beamed as they watched their children blossom in the spotlight. ‘He hated high school before, this is his favorite thing now,’ Nicki Graybeal said of her son, a junior in Amundsen’s orchestra. ‘Watching them with the CYSO, it shows them where they can go.’ ”
Posted February 26, 2014
