“Every first-timer at a Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras concert tends to say the same thing: ‘I can’t believe they’re kids!’ ” writes Melinda Bargreen in Friday’s (11/13) Seattle Times. “SYSO has been astonishing audiences, and giving unbeatable musical training to young players, since its founding in 1942. On the concert stage, the organization’s programming pulls no punches: Sunday’s lineup of Glinka’s tricky Russlan and Ludmilla overture, the soulful/speedy Barber Violin Concerto and Brahms’ mighty Fourth Symphony requires a professional-level orchestra…. Despite cuts in school budgets, and the perpetual endangerment of classical-music institutions, the Youth Symphony is a widely recognized bastion of excellence…. Among the better-known SYSO alums: David Harrington, founding first violinist of the Kronos Quartet … which played its first official concert in 1973…. Cellist and longtime radio announcer/producer Dave Beck … recalls the thrill of getting into SYSO in 1977, after auditioning his way up through its training orchestras (of which there now are three, plus a chamber-ensemble program)…. SYSO also partners with Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, playing as PNB’s ‘pit orchestra’ for upcoming school performances of Le Corsaire.”
Posted November 17, 2015
