Retired Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Executive Director Linda Boyd paints onstage during the orchestra’s recently recorded Young People’s Concert. Photo by Ethan Mickelson
“With a wave of her wandlike paint brush, former Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra Director Linda Boyd brings to life a sprawling castle on stage in a recent virtual concert … of Mussorgsky’s ‘The Old Castle,’ ” writes Ethan Mickelson in Monday’s (5/3) Forum (Fargo, ND). “The special performance … was masterminded as a way to continue the Young People’s Concert … for … fourth graders…. Boyd was approached by associate conductor for the orchestra, Jane Linde Capistran, to get involved in a new way … Capistran devised a concert that would follow an age-old concept combining classical music with the beauty of art…. With a strict limitation on musician capacity and masked for their protection, the symphony members followed Capistran bar for bar as a camera crew captured the magic … Designed to introduce children to the various instruments of the orchestra as they consider which one they might study in their school programs, this year’s theme of paint, create, doodle and draw offered up plenty of interactive elements, including Boyd’s live painting as well as images of paintings by Marjorie Schlossman.… ‘I’m excited about being retired and having the luxury of time to just explore things …’ Boyd says.”
