“Like a lot of Michigan cities, Jackson is hurting,” writes Jennifer Guerra Thursday (8/5) on the Michigan Public Radio website. “The economy is in the tank, the unemployment rate is high, and stores continue to close, including the few places in town where teenagers could go hear live music. … So a couple college kids are trying to make the local symphony orchestra the place to be on the weekends. It’s 6pm on a Friday and the under-21 set is filing into the Jackson Symphony Orchestra. But they’re not here to listen to Bach or Beethoven. They’re here to see bands like Jolly Roger Walrus and Cardboard Cathedral. It’s part of a new concert series called Jammin at the JSO.” When organizers Aaron Wilson, 20, and bandmate Wes Swartz first knocked on Jackson Symphony Orchestra Development Director Mary Spring’s door, Spring admits that she was skeptical. “But she came around to the idea and offered Wilson and his friends the symphony orchestra hall one Friday a month for free, plus a four dollar cover charge to pay the bands. Spring says the first Jammin’ at the JSO show in June was a huge success. … Not to mention these kids could one day turn into ticket-holding audience members at an actual JSO performance.”
Posted August 6, 2010
