“Holland Area Youth Orchestra has a new music director,” writes Lori Timmer in Monday’s (3/4) Holland Sentinel (Holland, MI). “Christopher Fashun will start his tenure in September 2019…. He brings more than two decades of experience as a music educator…. Fashun follows Richard Piippo, who is retiring from the position of Holland Area Youth Orchestra music director after 20 years in this leadership role. Piippo is the retired director of orchestras at Hope College, the position which Fashun now holds…. A 2018 recipient of a U.S. Postdoctoral Fulbright Award in All Disciplines, Fashun will live and research Afro-Brazilian music in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, during the summer of 2019…. An assistant professor of music at Hope College, he serves as the director of orchestras, the founder and music director of the Brazilian Drumming Ensemble, teacher of applied percussion, world music, and is an instructor of Instrumental Music Education. An accomplished percussionist and violist, he has several years of orchestral and chamber music experience and has enjoyed success in both areas as a soloist by winning three concerto competitions … Holland Area Youth Orchestra is the most advanced of the three orchestras in the [Holland Symphony Orchestra’s] youth orchestra system.”
Posted March 7, 2019
