Orchestra brings music to Valley schools

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

If students can’t come to Powers Auditorium for a musical experience, the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra will come to them.

Faced with mounting transportation costs and classroom instruction time limitations, many local school districts are discontinuing field trips.

So the YSO is stepping up to keep the musical experiences going by presenting Young Peoples Concerts at area schools this year.

On Oct. 28, the orchestra, with Music Director Randall Craig Fleischer and narrator Heidi Joyce, will perform for elementary and secondary schoolchildren in the West Branch and Sebring school districts.

During the concerts, students will musically discover the ethnic groups who have settled in the Mahoning Valley through such songs as “Irish Washerwoman,” “Hava Nagila,” “Wade in the Water” and “Caravan.”

To further familiarize students with the immigration to the Valley, the symphony is suggesting several classroom activities.

These include gathering information about composers represented on the program; inviting a musician to the classroom to perform music of their heritage or a community resident to speak about their family’s journey to America; exploring the ethnic backgrounds of class members; and creating an immigration matrix of ethnic populations arriving in the Mahoning Valley.

Young Peoples Concerts will continue in March when the orchestra will perform for elementary and secondary school students in Champion, Poland and South Range school districts, and at Powers Auditorium downtown.

Schools wishing to have the YSO perform in their school district should contact the symphony’s education department at 330-744-4269.