Orchestra to perform local premiere of Fleischer’s ‘Echoes’

Staff report

Youngstown

“Echoes,” a symphonic work composed by Randall Craig Fleischer that encompasses the music, song and dance of the indigenous people of Alaska, Hawaii and New England, will be performed Saturday by the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra will be accompanied by Native American dancers and singers.

Fleischer is the music director and conductor of the YSO. He was commissioned a few years ago by Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations (ECHO) to write a symphonic work, which later was enlarged to include Choctaw Natives Americans from Mississippi.

“Echoes” premiered in 2009 in Anchorage, Alaska. Saturday’s performance of the six-movement piece will be the first in Youngstown, and it will mark the first time the Choctaw movement is included.

The production will feature 27 native-American performers from Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Mississippi. They will join forces with local native dancers and singers.

Also joining in will be The Youngstown Connection high school song-and-dance troupe; Michael Karas, Eric McClellan, Patrick Niess and Tom Scurich, who will perform sea chanteys; and the Singers of the Island hula dancers.

The concert will also include a multimedia show that depicts the scenic wonders of Alaska and Hawaii. The “Echoes” portion of Saturday’s concert will be taped by Time Warner Cable and rebroadcast at a future date.

Other selections to be performed at Saturday’s concert will include Wagner’s “Forest Murmures” from “Siegfried”; Mendelssohn’s “he Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave)” and Resspighi’s “The Birds.”

Native American and non-Native performers associated with the concert will visit area schools this week, including Lakeview Middle School in Cortland; Notre Dame School in Hermitage, Pa.; and Kirkmere, Taft and South Side Academy in Youngstown. Their visits are funded by the U.S. Department of Education.