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30,000 to Attend ASO’s 2010 Young People’s Concerts

May 12, 2010
  • Who: Austin Symphony Orchestra
  • What: 2010 Young People's Concerts
  • When: May 18 - 25, 2010
  • Where: Long Center for the Performing Arts
  • Contact: Don Hill, Director of Public Relations

Sponsors: James C. Armstrong Youth Education Endowment, Texas Women for the Arts, McDonald’s, Temple-Inland Foundation, William Knox Holt Foundation, RGK Foundation, Women’s Symphony League of Austin and the ASO Endowment/Youth Education Fund, City of Austin/Cultural Arts Division and the Texas Commission on the Arts
Media Sponsors: Time Warner Cable/News 8 Austin, Austin American-Statesman and Majic 95.5 FM

For seven days in May, nearly 30,000 eager Central Texas school children will come by the busload to fill Dell Hall at the Long Center for the Performing Arts to learn about the music that moves them. From boots to toe shoes, “Let’s Dance,” the 2010 Young People’s Concerts of the Austin Symphony, will feature an array of music, dancers and thrilling images on the big screen. The youth-oriented program includes Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown,” “Waltz” from Sleeping Beauty,” Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird: Infernal Dance and many more, performed with University of Texas Department of Theatre and Dance, Dance Repertory Theatre, and choreographed by Associate Professor of Dance, David Justin. This is an important and formative day for these elementary school students as many are coming to a concert venue for the very first time to discover an inspiring array of sounds, images, and people.

Imagine the excitement each student will experience as their weeks of lessons culminate in a trip to the concert hall. As they step onto the plaza (many dressed “to the nines”) and file into the towering concert hall they are inundated with the spectacular sights and sounds of ASO’s Young People’s Concerts. The enthusiasm is palpable as each student takes a seat and starts to guess at the wacky trivia on the big screen. Emcee Marco Parella will regale the young crowd with jokes and explanations of the instruments and compositions played by the full orchestra. If the sounds weren’t enough, each musician’s stand is augmented with its name and video cameras capture the live action and project it onto huge screens along with the students’ previously created artwork to produce a real-time “Classical MTV.”

This is a truly rare and special event in the lives of our children, which is often their primary exposure to classical music, seeding a lifetime of appreciation for the arts. The ASO’s Young People’s Concerts are an opportunity to educate the 4th, 5th and 6th graders of our local school systems on how to “look” at a symphony. This fun-filled and action packed 40-minute narrated concert features symphony music that is familiar to young listeners. This year the ASO will feature guest conductor Raffaele Ponti. Maestro Ponti is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music. He began his career performing as assistant principal trumpet to Bernard Adelstein of the Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 19. Working with renowned conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Yoel Levi, Klaus Tennstedt, and Sir Colin Davis, inspired Ponti’s decision to pursue a conducting career.