The Maine Youth Orchestra and the North Yarmouth Academy Chamber Choir will be performing at the Yarmouth High School Auditorium on December 12, 2004 at 3:00 PM. Formerly the Brunswick Regional Youth Orchestra, MYO will be performing its first concert since relocating to Yarmouth. Featured in this concert will be the North Yarmouth Academy Chamber Choir and members of the Yarmouth High School Chamber Choir. This collaborative effort will celebrate all music with selections from the Ode for St. Cecilia's Day written by George F. Handel. St Cecilia is the patron saint of music who lived from 80 to 117 AD. This piece by Handel, written in the 18th century depicts each section of the orchestra separately i.e., the Soft Complaining Flutes, and the Trumpets Loud Clangour, while the voices of the choir, the Harmony Chorus, rejoice in the power of music.
The Maine Youth Orchestra is under the direction of Paul Ross, cellist for the Portland String Quartet. Maestro Ross holds degrees in cello and conducting from Juilliard School of Music and teaches at North Yarmouth Academy and Colby College while performing with the Portland String Quartet and conducting the Augusta Symphony, Androscoggin Valley Community Orchestra and the Maine Youth Orchestra. Paul is excited to have "new music, a new place, new season and new faces." Scott Thurston, instrumental music teacher at Greely Middle School in Cumberland, is assisting Paul as his winds coach. This year students from Scarborough to Gardiner have come together to perform orchestral literature under the professional direction of Paul Ross. This orchestra has long celebrated youth with a gift of music to the community through outreach programs in schools and for non-profit organizations.
Nora Krainis is the choral director at North Yarmouth Academy. She earned her degree from Texas A&M. During the summer months, she teaches at Camp Taconic in the Berkshires, Massachusetts. Ms. Krainis invited MYO to play with her choir in order to welcome the new orchestra to the area.
Other pieces in the concert will feature the orchestra in J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Sinfonia, and the NYA Chamber Choir in For the Beauty of the Earth by John Rutter, Ain'-A That Good News!, by William Dawson and Bridge Over Troubled Water by Paul Simon. It is a time honored tradition to bring some holiday cheer with carols at the end of the performance and an impromptu conducting lesson for a member of the audience. Donations of $8 for adults are requested at the door, but all children under 18 are our guests. For more information check the MYO website at www.bryo.org or call 751-8031.
On December 24 from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m., small ensembles from the orchestra will spread holiday cheer by performing seasonal music for last-minute shoppers L.L. Beans. The next MYO concert will be the second joint concert with the Augusta Symphony on March 19, 2005 featuring Beethoven's Finlandia and La Forza Del Destino by Verdi. The Concerto Concert of this the 33rd season will be held in May and will feature, as soloists, our seniors Conor Cook of Yarmouth, Lindsey McChord of Topsham, Elizabeth Werley-Prieto of Portland and Dan Hayes of Cumberland, as well as a full orchestral rendition of John William's Harry Potter Symphonic Suite.