The orchestra, directed by Channing Yu, performs a program of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Bamboula: Rhapsodic Dance, Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Max Bruch’s Symphony No. 3. A pre-concert talk by the conductor is scheduled for 2:15 p.m.
Admission for youth under 18 is free.
Guest conductor Channing Yu is Music Director of the Mercury Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Associate Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project in New York City. He is the national winner of the 2010 American Prize in Orchestral Conducting in the community orchestra division.
He has served as Music Director of the Dudley Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Music Director of Bay Colony Brass in Watertown, Massachusetts. He has also served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Lowell House Opera, the oldest opera company in New England, where he conducted over thirty fully staged performances with orchestra, including Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Puccini’s Turandot, Verdi’s Otello, and Puccini’s Tosca. For his musical direction of Tosca, he was awarded second prize in the 2011 American Prize in Opera Conducting national competition.
Max Bruch (1838-1920) wrote his Third Symphony in 1884. A less familiar work than his frequently performed Violin Concerto No. 1, it has a lovely, lyrical slow movement, cheerful scherzo, and exciting finale. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 -1912), an English composer whose father was born in Africa, wrote Bamboula: Rhapsodic Dance in 1910. The bamboula is the name of a drum and a dance that was brought to America and the Caribbean by African slaves.
Each season, the Concord Orchestra features a young performer selected by the annual young artist competition. The competition is open to musicians of high school age or younger who live in eastern Massachusetts. This year’s winner was chosen by a panel of orchestra members and Channing Yu.
Lazar Kaminsky, age 16, performs Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Throughout his life, Lazar has won competitions, and performed major solo, chamber, and orchestral works around the world. He won the AIMS Festival concerto competition in 2015 and 2019, the NEC Solo Competition, the IMO New York Solo Competition and the Waltham Philharmonic Concerto Competition. Lazar has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras. He was co-principal cellist of the NEC Youth Symphony during their 2019 season and is now co-principal cellist of the NEC Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. Lazar has performed in many parts of the world, including NEC’s Jordan Hall, Italy, Spain, Israel, France, and Mexico.
