Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon
Spring Concert
May 19, 2024, 3:00 p.m.
Craterian Theater at the Collier Center, Medford

The Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon closes its 2023-2024 Concert Season with a 3PM Spring Concert Series performance at the Collier Center’s Craterian Theater on Sunday, May 19, 2024. The concert will showcase music by Hummel, Elgar, Rossini, Bernstein, and others, and will feature a world premiere.

The Youth Symphony will play Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Grand Concerto in F Major for Bassoon and Orchestra featuring principal bassoonist and 2023 Concerto Competition winner James Dyson, Variation No. 9 “Nimrod” from Edward Elgar’s The Enigma Variations, Op. 36, and the overture to the opera William Tell by Gioacchino Rossini (ed. Hoffman). The Youth Symphony will also premiere a new work commissioned by the YSSO organization entitled The Emerald Moon by composer Mark Eliot Jacobs.

The Youth Orchestra will play Baba Yetu from Civilization IV by Christopher Tin (arr. J. Vinson), an arrangement of selections from Elmer Bernstein’s score for the film “The Magnificent Seven,” and an audience favorite, The Great Locomotive Chase, by Robert W. Smith.

Music director and conductor Cynthia Hutton, D.M.A., will lead the two orchestras.

Founded in 1988, the Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon is a regional organization offering high- level, challenging orchestral music opportunities, a competition for advanced players, and solo and chamber music experiences. Participation in the YSSO develops technical, interpretive, and performance skills and nurtures workforce skills such as empathy, focus, discipline, and teamwork. A Youth Symphony alumnus observed the YSSO offers an opportunity to “be part of a group where every person’s sound contributes to the music.” The Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon engages hearts, hands, and minds and connects young people, families, and communities through music. Musicians from throughout the Rogue Valley and college musicians are selected to participate each year.