orchestralia: the land of classical music

I am thrilled to be serving as Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra! I have worked with the ensemble in many capacities in the past, and getting to do weekly rehearsals and exciting performances has been a blast! We have a fantastic group of young musicians, the rep is real, the ensemble is sounding great, and we’re performing a lot - including here in the Triad and at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC.

The GSYO program has three ensembles and usually around 150 students overall. The top ensemble went to Chicago in 2014 - read about it here - and went on a super-cool trip to Atlanta in Spring 2022. In 2015, the group created a professional recording, with both full-ensemble and studio playing; the result now is available on Spotify and Apple Music. More information at gsyo.org.

I am also glad to be working with the new Alamance Youth Orchestra! Through the organization Young Musicians of Alamance, this program is off to a great start and I am excited to be in from the very beginning! Our first performances in June featured music from Bach and Shostakovich to Hildur Guðnadóttir and Miles Davis - I can’t wait to be a part of it as this program continues to grow and evolve. More information at ymofa.org.

Since 2006, I have been on staff with the Greensboro Symphony, serving as Education Manager and subsequently Education Director. With my colleagues in the Symphony, we present over 75 chamber ensemble concerts per year in Guilford County Elementary Schools. We perform for over 20,000 students across three counties with our annual full orchestral education concerts. Our beginning strings program has grown into an exemplary collaboration, and the Symphony’s OrKIDStra program includes weekly classes and annual chamber concerts for four-year olds in Head Start across three counties. More information is available at the Greensboro Symphony website.

While at the Eastman School of Music, I took courses in and earned a certificate from the Arts Leadership Program. I'm interested in current developments in the orchestra and music worlds as well as relationships between performing arts organizations and educational programming. If you're interested in knowing more about what we are doing in Greensboro, please drop me a line!

updates and musings to come in the blog below… yes… I realize that a lot of these are from when I started this site in 2015 and are no longer particularly relevant… but as things get going again, I’m sure there will be more…

NYO2

August 11, 2021

(originally written August 2015)

really, the second orchestra? and for people without "high level" opportunities? and you ask me?

just like the the first one, only for more diversity. wait, which one is screened?

the 10,000 times

August 11, 2021

(originally written August 2015)

"knowledge plus ten thousand times is skill."

Arts Summit, or The Saviours of the World (SOTW's)

August 11, 2021

(originally written August 2015, in response to not being invited to an “Arts Summit”)

ask yourself, is it the art that is in trouble, or your business model?