Oakland Youth Orchestra Presents Hot Winter Concert

43rd Season of great music by great kids where education meets performance. January 28, 2007, 3 pm, at First Congregational Church in Oakland. The concert will be conducted by the masterful Maestro Michael Morgan and the brilliant OYO Principal Conductor Bryan Nies.

Michael Morgan has said of OYO: "You have to experience it in person. There is an excitement that simply cannot be duplicated."

OYO Concert Program

- Overture to Nabucco Giuseppe Verdi

- Overture to Mazeppa Franz Liszt

- Chamber Symphony Op.110a Dmitri Shostakovich

- Petite Symphonie for Winds Charles Gounod

Admission is $12 for adults and $8 for students and senior citizens. Tickets may be purchased at the door. First Congregational Church is located at 2501 Harrison Street, Oakland 94612.

Oakland Youth Orchestra is comprised of 80 talented young music students aged 13 to 21 years from over 30 cities from throughout the Bay Area. The Orchestra is supported by tuition, corporate, foundation and government grants, and contributions from individuals in the community.

Artistic Director Michael Morgan was born in Washington DC where he began conducting at the age of 12. While a student at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, he spent a summer at the Tanglewood Berkshire Music Center and worked with Leonard Bernstein. Morgan is a noted teacher of conducting and advocate for music education in Oakland and around the world.

Principal Conductor Bryan Nies holds the prestigious Bruno Walter Assistant Conductor Chair with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, is Assistant Conductor of Opera San Jose, and an assistant conductor of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek.

Sleighride for the Ears: Maestro Morgan programs OYO's second concert with two sizzling mid-nineteenth century overtures, and two pieces which show off the chiseled skills of the OYO string ensemble and wind ensemble.

Italian Giuseppe Verdi wrote many wonderful operas, and this overture is a delight.

Hungarian Franz Liszt was a skilled composer in many forms. The Overture to Mazeppa is known to get its pizzazz from particularly difficult passages, especially for the OYO strings, who will certainly try to impressive their audience. This exciting music was once featured in an Errol Flynn film!

Russian Dmitri Shostakovich originally wrote the Chamber Symphony for a string quartet in 1960. It hails from one of the darkest periods of his life, and evokes the horrors of fascism and generally of the Second World War. It will revolutionize your idea of what stringed instruments can play!

The French Charles Gounod wrote in many forms, including opera. His Petite Symphonie is an absolutely delightfully delicate take on a classical symphony with a very limited number of instruments-just 9 woodwind and brass players.

By www.oyo.org