by Alice Koeninger
Kenny Loggins and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra brought rock and roll to Severance Hall on Monday, May 21. Conducted by Liza Grossman, the CYO’s forces included two drum sets and a large chorus with backup vocalists for this retrospective of Loggins’ music. The sound was remarkable. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Saturday evening, May 5, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra presented its final concert of the season at Severance Hall under conductor Vinay Parameswaran. The evening’s highlight was 20th-century Polish composer Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, a massive, three-movement piece that filled the stage with young musicians. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
For the past 22 years, conductor Liza Grossman has been turning young musicians on to the expansive repertoire that falls under the category of new music. On Saturday, December 9 in CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium, Grossman led her Contemporary Youth Orchestra in the opening concert of the impressive ensemble’s 23rd season. The program, titled “Go! Music to Get You Moving,” took listeners on a stroll from the English countryside to the birthplace of techno music in the empty warehouses of downtown Detroit. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
With echoes of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony still lingering in the corners of Severance Hall from their elder ensemble’s concert on Thursday evening, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) made an impressive showing in works by Beethoven, Barber, and Prokofiev on Friday, December 1, marking the debut of their new conductor Vinay Parameswaran at the beginning of their 32nd season. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“Until I joined CYO I wasn’t aware of the world of contemporary music,” flutist Sarah Frisof said by telephone. “But by the time I went to Eastman, I already had my ears opened to listening to music differently. I would credit my time in the orchestra with making that happen.”
On Saturday, December 9 at 7:00 pm in CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra under the direction of Liza Grossman welcomes back alumna Sarah Frisof as soloist in Joan Tower’s Flute Concerto for its first concert of the season. The evening also features a second solo work, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ beautifully pastoral Oboe Concerto, performed by the Orchestra’s concerto competition winner Kate Young. The program will include Mason Bates’ The B-Sides, Clint Needham’s Free Radicals, and Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2. Tickets are available online.
Since her time with CYO, Sarah Frisof has earned degrees from Eastman, Juilliard, and the University of Michigan. In addition to an active performing career, she is also an enthusiastic educator. She has served on the faculty at the University of Kansas and is currently Associate Professor of Flute at the University of Maryland. [Read more…]