MUSIC Youth orchestra will play at OMEA event

The group was selected after competing with about 30 other ensembles.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
The Youngstown Symphony Youth Orchestra, an affiliate of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra has been chosen to play at the OMEA (Ohio Music Educator's Association) conference in Cleveland in January.
The orchestra competed with about 30 other ensembles from Ohio high schools and colleges. "They had the highest cumulative rating of any other high school group," said director Stephen Gage. "Only one college level group had a higher rating."
Gage began directing the youth symphony in 1993, which is when he also joined Youngstown State University, where he is the director of bands at Dana School of Music. "I am always astounded by the talent pool in the area," he said. "We auditioned about 170 students this year, and draw from about 25 high schools from western Pennsylvania and northern to northeast Ohio." There are 108 students in the orchestra, and everyone must audition each year.
"Most of the students are age 13-18," said Lucy Sharkey, affiliate president and manager of the group. "But we have one boy, a violinist, who was in fourth grade when he joined us two years ago."
Upcoming concert
The orchestra is preparing for its concert Dec. 4 at Powers. It will play selections from this concert at the OMEA conference and also as a pre-concert to the Youngstown Symphony on Jan. 21.
Katie Yazvak will play a tone poem by Ralph Vaughan Williams, "The Lark Ascending." "This is actually a song for violin, which contains text painting," Gage said, "It is lush and beautiful, post-romantic, with a lyrical violin part. Adam Waller will play the first movement of the Khachaturian 'Concerto for Violin in D minor.' It is not as popular as Beethoven's or Mendelssohn's violin concertos, but it is a virtuosic, fiery, flashy piece, filled with technical demands. This piece comes and grabs you -- it's a winner, and Adam owns it. He has the technique to make it work." Because Waller had the highest score in the concerto competition, he will be performing this piece with the orchestra at the OMEA conference (but not at the Jan. 21 concert).
Other pieces to be performed at all three concerts are the Franz von Supp & eacute; overture to the opera "Light Cavalry," a very well-known piece that most people will recognize, since it has been used frequently in cartoons, commercials and movie soundtracks.
"We try to do one or two operatic overtures at each concert," said Gage. "There are so many beautiful ones which provide a great learning experience for the students."
The orchestra will also play a Leopold Stokowski arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Komm Susser Tod" (Come, Sweet Death), which Gage describes as "four minutes of timbrel elegance in the great harmonic language of Bach, a very lovely transition piece."
The concert will end with Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's overture-fantasy "Romeo and Juliet," another piece which most people recognize because the "love theme" has been used commercially.
Symphonette will perform
At the Dec. 4 concert, three other ensembles will also perform. "The Symphonette is a feeder group of younger musicians, grades five to eight," said Sharkey. "It is like a string chamber group that gives the students performing experience, and they often move on to the large group. Michele Vari is the conductor."
There is also a brass choir, which will play the fanfare from "La Peri" by Paul Dukas, and a percussion ensemble.
The Dec. 4 concert will be at 4 p.m. at Powers Auditorium. For more information, call (330) 744-0264.