“The Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra will take off on its seventh international tour June 15, returning to Europe for four concerts in four countries and flying home June 26,” writes Mark Kanny in Friday’s (6/13) Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “Music director Lawrence Loh will lead the teenage musicians in big-league repertoire at concerts June 18 at Dvorak Hall of the Rudolfinum in Prague, Czech Republic; June 21 at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria; June 21 at Slovak Radio Hall in Bratislava, Slovakia; and June 25 at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.” The article includes quotes from piccolo player Runa Shuda, age 15, and bassist Eli Naragon, who “in September will be a freshman at the Oberlin College and Conservatory… Naragon, 18 … studies classical and jazz with symphony bassist Jeffrey Grubbs and jazz with Paul Thompson. The Shostakovich [tenth symphony] is his favorite of the tour repertoire, he says. ‘It’s a very energetic piece and also says so much about Shostakovich’s life and what it was like to be under Stalin and for that finally to be over.’ The youth symphony has toured internationally every three years since Craig W. Johnson became executive director in 1999.”
Posted June 16, 2014
