“For some 90 musicians of the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s monumental Ninth Symphony before a sold-out house at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall last May was a first to beat all firsts,” writes Rick Schultz in Thursday’s (3/12) Orange County Register (California). “The orchestra, now in its 45th season, is the subject of a new documentary that will air on PBS SoCal. It follows the young musicians’ yearlong preparation of the Ninth…. Directed and produced by Evan Rosenberg, the documentary ‘Journey to Joy’ portrays the orchestra’s work in bringing Beethoven’s daunting symphony up to concert level…. The orchestra’s Beethoven experience, and Rosenberg’s documentary of the event, may boost the orchestra’s profile outside Orange County…. An upcoming concert is almost as ambitious…. In January, the ensemble, joined by the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, will present the U.S. premiere of Turnage’s ‘Passchendaele’ at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The work, a co-commission by the orchestra, commemorates one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War. The Disney Hall program also includes Charles Ives’ ‘The Unanswered Question’ and Carl Nielsen’s primal four-movement Symphony No. 4, ‘The Inextinguishable,’ composed during the Great War.”
Posted March 13, 2015
