By Christina Bivona
Local conductor Steven Karidoyanes and the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony had an opportunity most musicians dream of: Performing in Hungary and the Czech Republic on the conservatory’s 2011 Eastern Europe tour last summer.
Karidoyanes, a native Bostonian, has been the music director and conductor for the conservatory’s Youth Symphony for the past eight years. This will also be his sixth year as music director of the Masterworks Chorale, based at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater, and his 18th year with the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra.
“I’m a kid at heart, and I love working with kids in training because it really helps me to keep things in perspective,” Karidoyanes said.
The tour took place from June 20 to June 28, with performances in Budapest and Prague. While there, students saw the conservatory’s top orchestra, the Youth Philharmonic, perform in Vienna at the Weiner Musikverein, a renowned Austrian concert hall, and had a few opportunities to sightsee in Hungary and the Czech Republic. In previous years, the symphony travelled with Karidoyanes to countries such as Greece, Italy and Costa Rica.
The Youth Symphony is one of 12 orchestras at the New England Conservatory and one of two that tour internationally. The symphony is made up of close to 100 musicians, with most students in the 10th to 12th grades. The international tour is open to all members of the Youth Symphony, but because of the trip’s cost, last year’s group was made up of 40 musicians.
“We tried to create a tour that is meaningful to everyone, and we do the best that we can to make it affordable to everyone,” Karidoyanes said.
Although challenged with such a small orchestra, Karidoyanes came up with the idea to tailor the program to the instrumental makeup of the Youth Symphony. The tour’s program was then filled with pieces such as Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, Rossini’s Thieving Magpie Overture, and contemporary folk dance arrangements from Czech and Hungarian composers. The orchestra’s encore, Aaron Copeland’s Hoe-down, was the only piece in the program by an American composer.
Because Eastern Europe was home to many famous composers, especially Mozart, there was a great appreciation for the music performed.
“Doing Mozart in Prague was a very natural thing for us to do,” Karidoyanes said. “I wanted to choose pieces that were very appropriate, that the audience would love and the orchestra could really play well.”
During the year, the symphony practices from 3:15 to 6 p.m. every Saturday. The Youth Symphony also had five rehearsals before it went off on its Eastern European tour. Karidoyanes made sure that the whole Youth Symphony would perform some of the tour’s repertoire during its other yearly concerts.
The students get a much broader education when they are performing multiple concerts, instead of just rehearsing for one, Karidoyanes said. “They get a real taste of what it’s like to be a professional musician.”
The Youth Symphony’s next concert will be will take place May 24 in Jordan Hall, with a guest cello soloist and featuring music from Tchaikovsky.
“It’s very gratifying,” Karidoyanes said, referring to the final product. “I like to use music as a way to reach out to audiences, and once you know your audience, and you program correctly, you make a real connection to them.”
Christina Bivona is an undergraduate student in the Northeastern University School of Journalism. This essay also appeared in the April 2012 paper edition of the Fenway News.
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