by Robert Rollin
The Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Randall Craig Fleischer, helped celebrate the centennial of the Butler Institute of American Art with a fittingly exciting and American program in Bacon Great Hall of the North Education Building on Saturday, July 27. The audience filled the converted church space, whose live acoustic was perfect for rousing works by George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein, as well as TV and film composer Gregory Prechel’s Impressions of the Butler, featuring projections of paintings from the museum’s collection.
Last Saturday, April 14, the Youngstown Symphony presented “Side by Side,” the fourth and last Classics Series concert under the baton of Randall Craig Fleischer. The evening’s highlight was the performance of movements from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony with teenage Youth Symphony musicians sitting in tandem with regular orchestra members.
Last Saturday night under the direction of Randall Craig Fleischer, the Youngstown Symphony began its pops series with One Singular Sensation: A Tribute to the Music of Marvin Hamlisch. All three soloists had worked with Hamlisch (1944-2012), and they seemed to lend a special authenticity to the concert. 
This past Saturday evening the Youngstown Symphony presented the season’s last classical music program with a twentieth-century musical emphasis. Soprano Kendra Colton served as guest artist for the evening in a performance of Samuel Barber’s poignant Knoxville: Summer of 1915.