A Big Concert

This past Saturday, NYOJ presented a big concert in collaboration with the Spanish embassy. The embassy flew in a wonderful Spanish conductor, Hugo Carrio, for a week of intense rehearsals with the orchestra. Hugo has spent the last six years conducting ensembles and teaching in El Sistema in Venezuela. As a teacher, it was a wonderful opportunity to see an original Sistema faculty at work. Our students responded to him with energy and excitement as you can see in this short clip from the performance:

The concert was a resounding success, with many different ensembles, from percussion groups to string quartets, showing off their progress. This article in The Gleaner describes the concert and mentions a little bit about my work arranging Jamaican folk songs for the orchestra.

Post-concert group picture

It was so moving to hear my arrangements of the two folk songs, Hold 'Em Joe and Wata Come a Mi Yeye, played with such feeling and commitment. I was especially touched when I saw several old Jamaican ladies in the back singing along and swaying to the music.

Largo from New World

Our first concert is in just a few short weeks! I've arranged several pieces for the concert (from full orchestra, to string quartet, to percussion ensemble) including Dvorak's Largo from the New World Symphony for small string ensemble. Kim Mai and I introduced it only a few weeks ago, and the kids have picked it up quickly and eagerly.

 

The purpose of the arrangement is to combine our senior strings playing melodic parts, with our new beginners playing open string parts. This gives the beginners the "El Sistema experience" of playing in a large ensemble almost immediately after starting the instrument.

This video also speaks to three of our main challenges, attendance, punctuality and retention. The group should actually be twice as big, but for one reason or another, half the kids are missing, their instruments sitting untouched in the storage room.