A Celebration of Youth

The next ESO concerts on November 21 and 22 are a “Celebration of Youth.”  We’ll start with an energetic work called “Celebration: Symphonic Dance for Orchestra” by Paul Basler.  This is a very exuberant piece that people always like on first hearing.

The next piece will be Schubert’s lovely Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”). After not conducting it for a while, I have really enjoyed coming back to this work.  Given the elegant themes and spacious phrase structures of this music, it is always hard to imagine that Schubert was in his 20’s when he wrote it!

Our soloist in the epic Cello Concerto by Dvorak is twelve-year old Johannes Gray, undoubtedly one of the most gifted young musicians in the country.  Johannes is the son of Brigitta Gray, who is my daughter Stephanie’s violin teacher.  The Gray’s are a beautiful and highly musical family.  The Dvorak concerto is really more like a symphony for cello and orchestra.  Our audience will be amazed by the talent of our highly youthful soloist!

Tomorrow morning I will visit and work with the Orchestra at Glenbard East High School in Lombard.  Their new conductor Timothy Fawkes has been most gracious in providing this chance for me to meet these young musicians.  We hope they will avail themselves of the opportunity to hear Johannes Gray and the ESO in Biester Auditorium on November 21.

My own pursuits at youthfulness were of mixed success this past week as I ran the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon last Saturday.  They say all marathons are 26.2 miles, but they certainly all don’t feel the same!  Having aggravated an Achilles tendon after four squash matches the previous weekend, this marathon just felt very long.  I came in at 4:12, a tad disappointing after a 3:54 finish in Chicago last month. At least they played “The William Tell Overture” at the start.  That was only part of the race that felt good to me!

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