Press Release: SYO Makes Fresh Start for Next 50 Years
August 28, 2009 – Just months after celebrating its first 50 years, the Saskatoon Youth Orchestra is entering a new era as it heads into its next half century.
Richard Carnegie will be taking up the baton as music director after the retirement of Wayne Toews, who shepherded the group for 25 years.
With a new director comes a new direction, and Carnegie is excited to get started putting his stamp on the orchestra.
“For me, growing up in youth orchestras was a really defining thing part of my musical development,” Carnegie says. “It was one of the most joyful times I’ve had making music, and to be a part of young people’s journey in music at this point in my career I think is just so exciting.”
Carnegie, 27, has been the principal bassist for the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Players since 2006, is a sessional lecturer in double bass at the University of Saskatchewan Department of Music and plays a wide gamut of other styles from rock to jazz to his own one-man theatre show with his double bass.
Despite his own relative youth and his varied interests, Carnegie is a big believer in concentrating on the traditional repertoire of orchestral music and plans to offer a challenge the SYO players in the 2009-2010 season.
“I want to explore with the players the symphonic works in their full and unabridged format,” Carnegie says. “Our first concert program will feature a complete performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in addition to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches and the prelude to Act III of Wagner’s Lohengrin. So we’re looking at playing Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks to commemorate 250 years after Handel’s death. And we’re also looking at playing an opera overture by Wagner, the prelude from Act III of Lohengrin and also the complete Fifth Symphony of Beethoven.”
Carnegie knows players new to the youth orchestra may at first feel daunted, but he plans to make the SYO enjoyable for his charges.
“I was totally lost the first time I went to rehearsal for a Beethoven symphony in youth orchestra. It’s a very similar feeling to trying to merge onto a freeway for the first time. But it’s such great music that it’s worth the effort. It’s also something that you look back and laugh at. You get to your first concert and wonder why you were worried.”
Carnegie will draw on his own experiences to balance the workload for the varied levels of musical development of the young musicians who are generally aged 14 to 22. He understands that just like learning to swim, some people thrive being thrown into the deep end of the pool, others need a slower approach.
“The goal is that you’re swimming by the end,” Carnegie says. “And I think there’s a different way for everyone to that end and it doesn’t have to be only one way or the other.”
The SYO accepts new players by audition. Its musicians are expected to study with a private instructor and participate in all rehearsals and performances scheduled during the season, which runs from August to April.
The SYO will perform Dec. 5 at the Sundog Arts and Entertainment Faire at Credit Union Centre. The public is being invited to watch for details of other concerts in the future. Admission to SYO concerts is by donation and all funds directly support the endeavors of the players.
Many alumni of the SYO have gone on to professional careers in music, but Carnegie stresses that is not necessarily the intent of the program. Developing skilled amateurs who will carry their love of music through their life is the focus, and those that want to continue on with music careers will definitely benefit from the experience.
Carnegie also has plans to introduce a competition for Saskatchewan composers under the age of 25 during the upcoming season, with the winner having their work performed by the youth orchestra the following season.
The SYO was established in 1958 by Murray Adaskin as the Saskatoon Junior Symphony. The current organization dates from 1983 when a committee of parents worked to develop an independent incorporated organization.
The SYO consists of three programs. In addition to the orchestra itself, the organization includes a string orchestra for young players called the Saskatoon Strings, directed by Bernadette Wilson, and a Double Bass program. The three programs attract elementary, high school and university students from a broad area around Saskatoon.
Carnegie says the developmental benefits of music on the young mind are well known to educators, but just as important are the social benefits.
“There’s something going on in the brain when you’re playing music that I think is quite unique and you don’t get in a lot of other disciplines,” he says. “But playing in an orchestra is a real social lesson. I don’t think it’s one of those things that you ever really talk about directly while in a rehearsal – it just comes about in the course of making music. Great music happens when you are listening to others and thinking about where your musical voice fits in. Our world could probably use a little bit more of that kind of humility and teamwork.”