WA Youth Orchestra makes the dream of joining a big ensemble available to young musicians who might not otherwise have the opportunity.
“In a place like Perth, you get some private schools that have good music programs but you often get other schools with very sparse music programs,” WAYO musical director Peter Moore said.
“WAYO has open auditions every year, which means any gifted or good youngster can join this big ensemble; even students at UWA and WAAPA still join WAYO to get the bigger repertoire because neither institution has an orchestra as big.
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READ NOW“The music is the vehicle but the social interaction is equally important, just like on any sporting team.”
Moore, who teaches at UWA, takes orchestra at WAAPA and has associations with WASO and international concert experience. He has been WAYO artistic director since 1988.
He will conduct more than 80 young musicians ranging from 14 to 26 years old in WAYO’s first concert of 2017, Vive la France! at Perth Concert Hall on Saturday, May 27.
The program will feature La Marseillaise, Dukas’s L’Apprenti Sorcier (Sorcerer’s Apprentice), Les Biches by Poulenc and Franck’s Symphony in D minor.
“We usually try have a theme and we decided it would be nice to have a French theme because you don’t get that too often,” Moore said.
“At the end of last year we toured to Singapore and Japan and what tends to happen when you do tours like that, is that people hang on to do the tour and at the end there will be a large turnover.
“When we returned in January, there were quite a few new members. I see my job is to help train the orchestra through this first half of the year, to start pushing up the standard because in the middle of the year we have Vladimir Verbitsky (conducting).”
Moore said he always enjoyed the comments from audience members about how much they loved watching WAYO musicians play.
“There is a strange quality when you do a piece with a youth orchestra, because they’re young and some are playing a full symphony for the first time,” he said.
“There’s an enthusiasm with this first brush; the kids get a buzz and the audience does as well.”
THE ESSENTIALS
What: Vive la France!
Where: Perth Concert Hall
When: May 27
Tickets: www.perthconcerthall.com.au