CSO Youth Orchestra marks 30th anniversary with spring concert

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Hitting the Right Note: CSO Youth Orchestra takes note of 30th anniversary

Josh Holritz was a violinist who had to play tuba in band because Tennessee Temple High School didn't have a strings program 20 years ago. So he joined the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera Youth Orchestra.

"Youth Orchestra was the only way for me to get to play violin," he recalls. "I started in the back row of the second violin section in sixth grade."

By his fifth year in the CSOYO, he was sitting on the front row and won first chair - making him concertmaster of the Youth Symphony.

Today, the youth orchestra alumnus is associate concertmaster of the CSO. He was served well by the work ethic born in weekly CSOYO rehearsals combined with his drive to move up through the ranks.

Holritz is one of several alumni who will help celebrate the CSOYO's 30th anniversary this weekend. The celebration's events include an alumni dinner Saturday at the Mountain City Club and rehearsals Sunday and Monday with the CSOYO musicians before the anniversary concert Monday night in the Tivoli Theatre. Alumni have been invited to sit in with the young musicians on the concert's final piece.

And what better way to mark such a musical milestone than to feature the talent of two of the Youth Orchestra's alumni?

In Monday's concert, the CSOYO will premiere the original work of alumnus Lucas Garner, "Platform 5, Fanfare for Orchestra." Another alum, percussionist Konstantine Vlasis, will be the featured soloist on "Mjolnir, Concerto for Timpani," also composed by Garner.

Beginnings

When the Chattanooga Symphony and Chattanooga Opera associations merged in 1985, there was a new enthusiasm for a rebirth of an orchestra for young people, according to Steve Tonkinson, CSO staff member.

Lee Parham, who was CSO board president at the time, along with Mary Barker, Linda Pennebaker, Linda Thompson, Kay Smith and Sandy Morris led the effort to reorganize a youth orchestra. It began with a three-day strings workshop for junior and senior high school students in August 1985. Participants had the opportunity to work with then-CSO Conductor Vakhtang Jordania, which generated lots of interest in the proposed youth orchestra. The workshop culminated with a concert conducted by former CSO Concertmaster Mark Reneau in the lobby of the Tivoli Theatre.

Official rehearsals for the new youth orchestra began in 1986 and its debut performance came in November 1986 at Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, according to CSO history. A Chamber Ensemble program was later added under the direction of Youth Orchestra Conductor Jay Craven.

The young musicians have been led by four conductors over the three decades - Orlo Gilbert was the first in 1986, followed by Philip Rice. Each served one year.

Craven took up the baton in 1988, remaining four years. He was followed by David Conn for one year before Gary Wilkes became the director in 1993 and remains today.

The original youth orchestra has expanded into three training organizations. A Philharmonic Orchestra was added in 1998, Etude Orchestra in 2000 and Prelude Orchestra in 2006. The Prelude and Etude orchestras serve elementary-age children while middle- and high-school students traditionally fill the Philharmonic and Symphony orchestras.

But the mission of each is to provide quality orchestral training, introduce young musicians to a broad range of repertoire and provide them with performance opportunities.

Lasting impact

For several musicians, the formative years playing in the Youth Orchestra developed a lifelong music appreciation that led to careers in music.

Holritz is an adjunct music professor at Covenant College in addition to his CSO gig. He is one of 22 youth orchestra alumni who now play with the CSO.

Tammy Nelson Fisher, who performed in that first CSOYO organization in 1986-87, still plays viola and teaches strings and music at Spring Creek Elementary School, where next year she is starting a Suzuki strings program, based on the internationally renowned teachings of Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki.

"Conductor Jay Craven helped encourage my love of music by making playing music fun," Fisher says. "He would pull out dollar bills and give us trivia questions. If you were the first to get the question right, you got the dollar.

"As an eighth-grader at Tyner Middle School, never in a million years did I think I would make a career of music."

Lucas Garner began playing in the Etude Orchestra at age 10 and spent eight years in the CSOYO organization.

"I worked my way up as a viola player from the Etude Orchestra to the Youth Symphony, which I was in for five years," he says.

The 23-year-old will soon graduate with a master's degree in music composition from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.

Garner says that, when he was young he found that not all of his musical interests fit the viola, so he picked up guitar and began to write songs with his friends "and my desire to write music began."

In his junior year at Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, he decided he wanted to learn to play percussion "because percussion was the hardest instrument to write music for," he explains. He switched instruments that year and joined the youth symphony as a percussionist.

After learning music theory from CSAS teacher and CSOYO Director Gary Wilkes, Garner studied composition with University of Tennessee at Chattanooga music professor Jonathan McNair. He used that knowledge to earn a bachelor's degree in music composition and percussion performance from Tennessee Technological University.

Garner wrote "Platforms, Fanfare for Orchestra" while home visiting his family for Christmas between November of last year and January. His work will be played by the CSOYO musicians on Monday night.

"The piece is a commentary on travel and places I have been this year," Garner explains. "Platform 5 refers to the platform of the same number at Manchester Piccadilly, the train station I use to go to London on trips.

"The piece is a musical depiction of my first trip to London, on which I met one of my favorite composers, John Adams. (His) works have always been some of my favorites and his 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine' is an orchestral fanfare similar to my own."

Konstantine Vlasis played in the CSAS and CSOYO orchestras at the same time as Garner, but he says it wasn't until they were both collegians at Tennessee Tech that their friendship bonded over percussion studies.

"Lucas approached me in 2013, asking if I would be interested in performing a timpani concerto he was thinking of writing. Of course I said yes," recalls Vlasis.

That was the first orchestral work Garner wrote - an ambitious 20-minute piece with a high degree of difficulty to perform. The composer says he worked with Vlasis while writing the concerto to make the part fit Vlasis' technical abilities.

"For that reason, it's stunning when he plays the piece," credits Garner. "He has a real presence behind the timpani."

Vlasis describes "Mjolnir" as a three-movement narrative that reflects the story of Mjolnir, the hammer wielded by Norse god Thor. The CSOYO and Vlasis will play the second and third movements.

"The second movement begins with three crotales (tuned metal plates) placed on the timpani," Vlasis says. "When the crotales are struck, they resonate for a long time. When the timpani becomes tuned in unison with the crotales, the overtone series ignites, producing a type of 'singing' effect.

"Lucas and I discovered this feature partly in theory and partly by accident - but I am certain the audience has never heard anything like it."

Vlasis says he is honored to be featured on music written by his friend, played under the direction of his old conductor and surrounded by young musicians much like himself 10 years ago.

"The CSOYO exposed me to a corpus of great repertoire at a young age, and inspired me to pursue my musical passion. I hope that community members are able to see the value of the musical arts and continue to support great ensembles and organization such as the CSOYO," adds Vlasis.

"It definitely made a difference in my life."

Contact Susan Pierce at spierce@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6284.