NJSO Youth Orchestras present annual spring concert
The NJSO Youth Orchestras present their annual spring concert tonight, May 9, at 7:30 pm at Montclair State University. The event features the Academy Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra and Violin Ensemble and marks the NJSO performance debut of the NJPAC Symphonic Band and NJSO Training Ensemble. The program showcases the student musicians of the youth ensembles and celebrates the program’s graduating seniors.
The Academy Orchestra, under the baton of NJSO Education & Community Engagement Conductor Jeffrey Grogan, will perform Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture, selections from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Chaminade’s Concertino for Flute and Orchestra. 2015 Concerto Competition Winner Sean Marron—an eighth-grade flutist from Ridgewood—performs as soloist in the Chaminade work. In a special opening segment, the AO Brass Ensemble begins the concert with the first movement of Maurer’s Three Pieces for Brass Quintet.
Chamber Orchestra conductor Henry Kao, an NJSO violist, conducts the chamber orchestra in Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3. The Violin Ensemble, led by NJSO first violinist Naomi Youngstein, performs selections from Mazas’ Violin Duets and arrangements of Wagner’s Chorale and Bach’s Gigue.
The NJPAC Symphonic Band and NJSO Training Ensemble make their NJSO performance debut. The two programs are part of the Music Advancement for Newark-area Youth (MANY) partnership between NJPAC and the NJSO. Designed to provide students in the Newark area with high-quality instrumental music instruction, MANY allows beginning and experienced students to study string, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments with the goal of developing musical and instrumental proficiency while building leadership skills.
The Youth Orchestras’ spring concert takes place at Montclair State University’s Memorial Auditorium.
Learn more about the NJSO Youth Orchestras.
Learn more about the NJPAC and NJSO partnership.
2015 CONCERTO COMPETITION WINNER SEAN MARRON
Sean Marron has been playing the flute for three years. An eighth grader at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, he studies privately with Nancy Horowitz, who serves as principal piccolo and second flute of the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra. Marron has played piccolo and third flute with the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra on multiple occasions and has made a solo appearance with the Waldwick Band. He has garnered a blue ribbon at the New York Flute Club’s Young Musician’s Contest for the past two years and won the 2015 competition performing Chaminade’s Concertino. Marron performed at Carnegie Hall with Sir James Galway in Tim Janis’ An American Christmas Carol in December 2014; he will appear at the Student Showcase of the Ridgewood Friends of Music concert in May.
The 2014–15 season is Marron’s second year playing flute and piccolo in the NJSO Academy Orchestra after AO Concertmaster Caleb Shi brought him to the orchestra’s Bring a Buddy Day in 2013. Marron has played wind quintets by Paul Taffanel and Giuseppe Cambini as part of AO’s chamber music program, and he performed the former at the beginning of an NJSO concert in Englewood. He is also interested in math and science and enjoys swimming in his free time.