By Amy Brunner | Joy Program Director
Hello Friends of Joy!
Our first semester of the Joy Youth Orchestras ended with a beautiful concert that was performed for a large audience of family and friends. Our 4-12 grade students spent rehearsals throughout the fall working on listening, dynamics, musicality, intonation, and creating connections with each other in order to prepare for their first concert. A quartet from the Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival joined string students for a West Coast premiere of a commission by Kevin Day entitled “Overture to Springtime”. A personalized message to the audience and students from Kevin Day himself set the tone and gave the background about the piece. Students had their own part that accompanied the quartet. It was a beautiful moment of collaboration. The Joy Youth Orchestra season continues in February and auditions will be held in January to build numbers and to keep the momentum going.
Prior to the first concert, we held an event called “Behind the Baton” which facilitated a conversation about the youth orchestra’s launch and that afternoon’s concert programming. The directors of the Youth Orchestras, two of the four professional quartet members, and the Joy Program Director, had an interview style conversation in front of an intimate audience of community stake holders, board members, and local music educators. Participants were able to ask questions to the panel as well.
The After School Orchestras are currently serving 195 2-5 grade students at four different sites across Yamhill County. We currently have eleven teaching artists on staff and five assistant teaching artists. Teams meet weekly to talk about lesson planning and how to best accommodate student needs. As we grow, we are continuing to build strong connections with our local universities to help foster a connection with the next generation of music educators. Currently, we have two students from George Fox University and one student from Linfield University on our staff.
Comfort Smith has taken on the role of K-1 Curriculum Specialist. Comfort is a seasoned Joy K-1 teacher and respected Suzuki instructor in the county. She is doing an amazing job in aligning our K-1 staff with common goals and gathering resources to aid in achieving those goals.
As our staff grows, we continue to share our knowledge with one another. This year, we have been able to gather twice in person and plan to do a “field trip” for our next meeting. After School Orchestra staff will travel to Lake Oswego or Salem to observe a 5th or 6th grade orchestra. Here we hope to gather ideas on classroom management and ways to keep students engaged. Our students come to the After School Orchestra after a full day of school and are often tired. Joy Staff have a common goal of keeping the bar high while making learning an orchestral instrument exciting and accessible. We continuously fine tune our offering to make it age accessible and successful for the most amount of students.
We look forward to hearing our students progress throughout the winter season.
By Amy Brunner | JOY Program Director
By Amy Brunner | JOY Program Director
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