This Monday, April 24th at 7:00pm at My Church located at 955 Wilkes Avenue, the Winnipeg Youth Orchestras will be holding their annual Sounds of Spring Concert. Featuring some of Manitoba’s finest student string and wind players, this concert will feature all three Orchestra’s that make up the Winnipeg Youth Orchestra System.
One of the highlights of the concert is that the Winnipeg Youth Symphony Orchestra will be featuring their 2023 student concerto competition winner, trumpet player Sam Ferguson. He will be playing Hummel’s Trumpet concerto, which is an ambitious piece for University level players never mind a high school student.
This concert features performances by all three orchestras. Those three orchestras being; The Youth Strings which consist of more beginner level string players, the Youth Concert Orchestra which consists of more intermediate level players, and the Youth Symphony Orchestra which is more advanced group.
For Andrea Bell, Conductor of The Winnipeg Youth Symphony Orchestra, these groups have become part of her DNA. Bell is from Winnipeg and has played in all three groups when she was a student. “Youth Orchestra was one of the most important parts of my life as a young person,” states Bell. After going off to University to study music, Bell found herself being hired to conduct the Youth Concert Orchestra. “It really has been a lifelong journey and love of mine…it’s really been one of the most important parts of my life.”
For 16 year old Fort Richmond Student Sam Ferguson, the opportunity to perform Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto is a big honor and presents some great challenges. “It presents a lot of opportunities for musicianship especially in the second movement…just showing expressiveness and phrasing, and those type of things really play a big part throughout the piece,” states Ferguson.
The Winnipeg Youth Symphony Orchestra in addition to performing Hummel’s trumpet concerto with Ferguson, will also be performing the second and third movement to Mendelsohn’s Symphony no. 4 and music of the African-American composer Florence Price.
This is going to be a great concert not to miss! The Winnipeg Youth Orchestras concert “Sounds of Spring” takes place this Monday, April 24th at 7:00pm at My Church located at 955 Wilkes Avenue. Tickets are $20.00 and are available at the door or through the Winnipeg Youth Orchestra’s website.