Our Masterworks I Guest Speaker Steven Lowe

We are very proud to host Steven Lowe as Guest Speaker as we kick off our first ever stand-alone concert series for the phenomenal Youth Symphony led by Dr. Teresa Metzger Howe. We wanted to offer up a little information on Steve's distinguished background, and many accomplishments.

Steven Lowe, Public Information Specialist for Seattle Symphony from 1996 through January 2007, joined the Symphony staff after two decades as a psychotherapist and more than three decades as a freelance contributer to many different musical journals including High Fidelity/ Musical America, Stereo Quarterly, Keynote, and Classical magazines. He has also written for The Los Angeles Times, and The Wisconsin State Journal.

A Rockefeller Foundation Grant -Project for the Training of Music Critics- brought Steve to the University of Southern California in 1965 and led to a position on staff as a reviewer and assistant editor for High Fidelity/Musical America Magazine.

Steve currently provides program notes for Seattle Symphony, Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Northwest Sinfonietta, and the University of Washington's "World Series" chamber music concerts and piano recitals. Steve also serves frequently as pre-concert lecturer for several of those organizations. In the past he has lectured for the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Baroque and the Early Music Guild; he wrote program notes for the Virginia Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, Stamford (Conn.) Symphony and the Northwest Chamber Orchestra.

Since 2007, Steve has given filled-to-capasity classes on classical music history for the Creative Retirement Institute through Edmonds Community college. He has been a frequent lecturer on classical music at the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island and has also taught at North Seattle Community College.

We are so looking forward to Steve's speech on November 14th at Bellevue Art Museum. We look forward to seeing you there!

Meet our new Intern Extraordinaire

This week we would like to introduce our new Intern, John Gim. John joins us via Interlake High School's Gifted Program which places students with community organizations for year long internships each year. We asked John to introduce himself and write a bit about his personal musical experiences. So without further ado:

"Music is the language of the heart, or so they say. I'm not really sure who they are, but I certainly agree.

Today in Psychology 201 I watched a video on a Mr. Clive Wearing, a musician whose conscious long term memory was taken away by an accident. He could only remember what he was perceiving at the moment - what he was seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, smelling and paying attention to. What had happened moments ago, it meant nothing to him as if he just woke up from an eternal slumber. It was weird seeing him write in his diary, "I have just now woken up", over and over again at different times of the day. 8:57 he would write, and at 9:02, he would write the exact same sentence. In essence, Clive starts his life over again every moment. However, his heart, soul, mind are all intact. He could speak clearly, trade jokes, express emotion, behave normally, and even play solitare.

Why talk psychology on a music blog? Well, it turns out that Clive is an excellent musician, once the leader of a pre-eminent choir in London and still an accomplished pianist and vocalist. Despite his inability to remember what he ate for breakfast, he could play Chopin's Pathetique or Haydn's opera concerto without fault. Confused and dazed he may be elsewhere but within the music sphere where the notion of time is lost and all that is present is the soul, Clive feels safe and completely at peace.

Clive's experience just shows that music is not just notes combined with a rhythm. No, it is an incredibly intrinsic yet real experience that goes beyond memory and time. It is organic, above what humans can express with words. Music really is the language of the heart.

Perhaps that is why it is so prevalent in today's society. My parents forced me to start playing piano at an early age of 5, and I practiced everyday, 1 hour each. By sophomore year of high school, I had played for a solid decade and other things took higher importance in my life. As part of the Gifted Program at Interlake High School, I was able to start the International Baccalaureate a year early so that I would finish by the end of my junior year, not my senior year. Education was always the first priority in my family and thus I chose to quit piano in order to focus on the IB Program. For two years since, music and I were completely strangers.

This year as a senior, I had the chance to intern at a business of my choice. I chose BYSO. To be honest, I wasn't too excited about alphabetizing the hundreds of applications or entering numbers for BYSO's music catalogue. I just wanted to listen to their music. Indeed, in the first week of rehearsal, I got in as much listening as possible. I heard 6-year-olds struggling to play Joust and I heard the full Youth orchestra tackle a symphony of some sort. All in all, it was inspiring. It was like eating chocolate for the first time after wearing braces for a year.

So I, John Gim, am here at BYSO as an intern, learning what I can about the music industry, backstage production and whatnot. But really, I'm here on a free ticket to all of BYSO's concerts in exchange for a few hours in the office every week."

Thanks John!

Memorable Musical Experiences. This Week: BYSO Executive Director Ruth Brewster

In reflecting on the many musical experiences we recieve throughout our lives, we at BYSO realize that these experiences entail varying roles, places, and times. As audience members or performers, touring with a group, or attempting a solo performance, hearing a great song on the radio, or happening across a talented group of street performers, they are all enriching and fun to share. This week we hear from Executive Director Ruth Brewster about her favorite musical experience as a listener.

"Everyone can remember a performance that made a real difference to them. It may be the first time you yourself perform, the first time you hear a violin, the first time you hear Chopin, the first time you get to play on a professional stage. For me, one of the most important performances I have ever seen was the first time I heard Joan Sutherland on the opera stage. I was 18 and a freshman in college. I had made special arrangements to see the Seattle Opera's production of Delibes's Lakme, an opera in French but set in India.
I had never heard it, had never heard of any of the performers. But Joan Sutherland, an Australian coloratura soprano, was in the title role as Lakme, an Indian princess. I don't remember the other singers at all, nor the full story line, nor anything else about the production. What I do remember is that I was blown away by her voice, her presence, her comfort at doing this incredible music. It was like being invited into a private conversation with her, like sharing a secret. She had welcomed me into her living room -the stage- to make me at home with this music.
Her vocal technique changed the whole way I thought about technique, about scales, arpeggios, about legato line and phrasing. Her presence on stage was so comfortable -not nervous or tense, not pretentious or brash.
Subsequent performances that I have seen of her in other operas and recitals only stress again and again how a true artist can bring the listener to know that beauty and simplicity work together, that the hard work she must have done in the rehearsal room pays off in the gift she gave everyone in her audiences -all we had to do was enjoy."

Thanks Ruth! If you have a great music listening experience to share, please let us know!

New Pictures from the Fall 2010 Retreat

Here are a few great new retreat photos taken by Barbara Ethington. Thanks Barbara!

Fall Retreat

For those who may be new to BYSO, our bi-annual retreats are a point of pride for us, serving as an innovative way to round out our student's educational experiences with us.

The retreats were started nearly 10 years ago during a time when BYSO was growing and growing each year (as it is now) and conductors and staff wanted to put an emphasis on orchestra members getting together to function as a team. They noticed that our students were coming from so many different towns, with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, ages, and instruments of choice. They thought it would be a great idea to have students get together outside of the intense pace of regular rehearsals and participate in specialized coaching sessions in small groups, get extra time together as an orchestra, and have time to play games and socialize.

Our Winter Retreat will take place on January 22nd for Cadet, Debut, and Premiere, and January 29th for Sinfonia, Youth, and Flutes.

Here are a few of the excellent photos submitted by Donna Fisher of our fall 2010 retreat:

Look for more fun photos of our concerts and retreats here on the blog, or on Facebook!

University of Denver Pre-College Academy

June 19-July 3, 2011 The Lamont School of Music Summer Pre-College Academy is looking for students ages 14-18 who are interested in their summer music program. In state of the art facilities, students will participate in private lessons and master classes, as well as seminars on college preperation, performance anxiety, and careers in music, to name a few. If you know any pre-college age music students interested you can check out their website for more information: www.du.edu/lamont/summeracademy Participants will also be back in town in time to start BYSO summer camps which will take place every week between July 11th- 29th 2011!

Seattle Music Partners

Seattle Music Partners is a great non-profit organization that is now gearing up for another year of after-school music tutoring. They provide after-school music instruction to elementary and middle school students in low-income schools in Seattle's Central District. They are calling for high school volunteers that will commit one afternoon each week to teach one-on-one instrumental music lessons to beginning musicians. No prior teaching experience is necessary. This is a great opportunity for high school students to gain teaching/leadership experience while improving their own musical skills. They also ensure that volunteer time is credited for service learning and/or community service requirements.
Please contact Lindsey Harris at lindsey@seattlemusicpartners.org for application information.