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Our Voice

With our first recording session tomorrow morning, and the tour only days away, I thought it was about time to write up some thoughts about this year's National Youth Orchestra. 

To date, we have all had an incredible and very intense month of preparation for our upcoming concerts.  With almost a hundred musicians, there is an amazing collision of ideas, talent, and personalities.  It is certainly impossible to leave such an experience unchanged. 

The other night, I had a conversation with two young musicians about what makes our musical "message" special.  As emerging artists, we are often told that life experience is required to make moving music.  Yet, here we are, most of us still in school, all still young in the span of most lives.  And our music moves people; at least it certainly moves me.  We believe that being young does not prevent accessing a depth of emotion.  In fact, because of our youth, perhaps there are fewer layers to dig through to reach this depth.  And so we offer as much of ourselves as we can, with the hope that there will be people to hear us.

I hope that you will all hear our offering on Wednesday night.

Christine Carter    

Posted by Christine Carter on July 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Already Week 4!

Wow. I cannot believe how fast the session is flying by. We are in our last week training and the music is sounding phenomenal. Our first concert is this Wednesday, July 25th at 7:30pm in Alumni Hall at UWO. The orchestra has progressed so much over the last four weeks and I am very excited to be playing our first concert, especially here at home in London. We start recording a CD tomorrow and on Tuesday. I have never done a professional recording and I am looking forward to the new experience. Everyone here is excited to start the tour and are thrilled to be showcasing our work over the last four weeks. Our concert in Ottawa on Friday July 27th, in the National Arts Centre, will be recorded for CBC Radio - how often does that happen! I am learning and experiencing so much here and I am in disbelief that we only have two weeks left with this great group of musicians. If any one reading is from London, the NYO is featured in the London Free Press today. I am happy that the city is recognizing that the NYO is a great orchestral training program and what an honor it is for this city to host it.
Anyways, look for notes while on tour, Stephanie

Posted by Stephanie Miletic on July 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Drumming to an Orchestral Beat!

Hey Everyone!

My name is Brennan Connolly and I am about to enter my fourth year here at Western as a Music Performance major on Percussion.

WOW!!! What an experience NYO has been so far. I am so blessed to have such an opportunity to work with such fantastic musicians! Especially getting to play percussion behind a brass section that has A LOT of power!! It really forces you to bring your "A" game to rehearsal.....everytime!! And it's pretty sweet because you get to play loudly on the triangle.....even though it is Wagner!!

Our Maestro is doing wonders with the music and it is beginning to show. I am extremely excited to record our CD this coming Monday and Tuesday. I can't wait to get a copy and hear how we sound! Our tour is fast approaching so be sure to catch our concert in London on July 25th at Alumni Hall. It starts at 7:30pm and admission is by donation!!

Connolly out!

Posted by Brennan Connolly on July 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Update from the brass section

Hello!

Sorry for the lack of posting so far... we're just being kept very busy here!  Here's my brief bio: I graduated from UWO with a MMus in literature and performance (trumpet) in 2006 and will be starting my doctorate in performance at Florida State University next month. 

The first thing I must say is what an incredible experience NYOC has been for me so far!  We had constant guidance from world-class teachers for three weeks including full section rehearsals (brass or winds+brass), individual sectionals (trumpets), and numerous private lessons.  On top of that, our teachers attended all of the rehearsals and gave us helpful tips both at the break and the end of rehearsal.  The brass and percussion section were lucky because we had the opportunity to prepare a separate concert which was yesterday in Toronto.  It was very exciting to play with such amazing players and to work with the exceptional faculty members. 

It is incredible how much of an impact this environment has had on my playing in the past three weeks.  The standard of musicianship throughout the orchestra is so high that everyone is always striving to keep up with each other and, because the atmosphere is based of friendships and positive energy, there isn't really an intimidation factor to get in the way.  It seems that everyone is having fun while working extremely hard to get our repertoire ready for the tour and recording sessions.  The result is a continually improving product and I fully recommend this experience to anyone even if your dream is not an orchestral career.  Orchestral playing is definetely the first priority here but there are so many other opportunities to develop as well.  Besides the lessons and being surrounded by great players all the time, another non-orchestral benefit is the chamber music.  I am playing in a brass quintet, a mixed sextet (violin, cello, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, and piano), and a duo with trumpet and tuba.  It is a ton of fun to play chamber music with such talented players and I'm very glad that I took advantage of the opportunity.   

I have to get over to rehearsal now...
Regards,
Alan

Posted by Alan Klaus on July 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

First Official Post

Hello Everyone,
My name is Stephanie and I am one of the 91 people in the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. I am especially proud because this year the session is being held at the Don Wright Faculty of Music here at Western! I am going into my fourth year of BMUS Performance at the DWFOM (Don Wright Faculty of Music) and I play the viola. It is so great to be representing London and Western. So far the experience has been amazing. The NYO is the only Professional Orchestra training ground in North America, so it is a great honour to be here. It is said that one in three Professional Musicians in Canada are alumni of the NYO. There are 91 musicians age 14-28 that auditioned from across the country to be in this orchestra. I am meeting so many people from all over Canada such as people from Victoria, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Thunderbay.
    We moved in to Delaware hall (student residence) on June 24th.  The first week we had 3, 2 hour sectionals every day. Sectionals are for 'like' instruments so all the cellos would have a sectional, violins etc. It was great meeting really good musicians that play the same instrument as I do. The viola Prof is Neil Gripp, who is the principle violist of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. We have learned so much from him and it is great to hear about all his experiences playing in a professional orchestra. We also have weekly lessons and several faculty concerts every week. We are truly immersed in a total musical experience and I am loving every minute of it. When we are not with our instruments we have organized activities such as soccer, volleyball, and movie nights. Everyone here gets along very well. We also have lectures during the week about orchestral etiquette, musician injuries and musical analysis. I can't believe that it is already week three!
That is all for now.
Stephanie

Posted by Stephanie Miletic on July 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Welcome!

Posted by Communications Western on July 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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The University of Western Ontario Opera Workshop program has enjoyed a colourful and successful history. UWOpera continues to be a major part of the growth of the vocal program at the faculty of music.

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