YOUTH ORCHESTRA HAS SAFETY COVERED FOR ONLINE HOLIDAY SHOWS
ESYO prepared for ongoing Tutti! Festival with practice, custom protective gear
“Tutti” is an Italian word meaning “all together.” When used in a musical score, it indicates that the solo work is over and it’s time for musicians to play together once more. That’s just what the musicians of the Empire State Youth Orchestra have been doing since September. After losing out on the spring season due to the pandemic, they ’ve been playing together again in a mix of online and in-person rehearsals. For safety, they rely on smaller ensembles, social distancing and some personal protective gear made just for them.
Since the start of the month, members of ESYO’S 15 ensembles are celebrating the completion of their first semester back with a series of eight online concerts appropriately named the Tutti! Festival. Performances were recorded live on the Proctors Mainstage and are being presented through the ESYO Virtual Concert Hall, a video portal on the organization’s website (ESYO.ORG ). The suggested donation is $10 per concert and each video remains available for 48 hours. The final concert video debuts Sunday.
The Tutti! Festival is being presented during the holiday season, a time when ESYO, in a normal year, would be highly prominent in the larger community with small ensembles appearing in shopping malls, and the senior orchestra performing in the annual gala televised event Melodies of Christmas. Instead of holiday favorites, this year’s streaming programs offer a lively mix of selections ranging from Beethoven and Brubeck to John Williams and Mozart.
Concerts can be a thrill, whether live or recorded, but the larger goal of ESYO is education and the development of young musicians. That work has continued with new chamber ensembles and more emphasis on sectional rehearsals. These groupings have resulted in more
personalized attention for students and also opened up new avenues of repertoire.
Music director Carlos Agreda foresees maintaining some of the adjustments into the post-pandemic era. In an ESYO press statement he says: “Online auditions allow for more time for the judges to see each audition giving them the opportunity to write meaningful feedback. Also, the chamber orchestra configuration is challenging our musicians to understand at a different level the way they play their role in the orchestra.”
Clarinetist Jared Lamson, a senior at Ravena-coeymans- Selkirk High School, says: “In a normal year, the winds did not play as a section very often, or even at all. This sectional experience has not only allowed for me to learn my part better, but for everyone to play more cohesively as a wind section.”
Social distancing for working musicians has its own complexities. ESYO’S
standard is 6 feet of distance for strings and 12 feet for winds and brass. With ensembles of up to 30 members in size, some large rehearsal halls were needed. Proctors offers multiple performance spaces and newly updated air circulation systems.
Searching for a means to contain anything sent airborne by wind players, EYSO'S executive director, Rebecca Calos, reached out to seamstress Michelle Stefanik. Together they designed “woodwind bags” that fully contain each instrument. Brass instruments were given bell covers.
“We wanted a lightweight fabric but it needed some stiffness so they can move their fingers and not have something on top of them. But it still needed to be tight enough to offer protection,” explains Stefanik, a fourth-generation seamstress
based in New Baltimore.
They settled on a polyester organza and used it in layers. Ninety yards of the fabric went into making 114 bags and covers. The most challenging instrument to design for was the horn, which is played with one hand inside the bell. The solution was a kind of sleeve that the player reaches through. The woodwind bags have elastic holes for the hands.
Due to social distancing, the seamstress never got to meet any of the young musicians, yet she still grasped the seriousness of purpose that characterizes ESYO and its members. “I have a new appreciation of children in music,” says Stefanik. “It’s comparable to high end sports. These kids are really committed.”
“Possessor Uncut”: Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips described this second film from writer-director Brandon Cronenberg as “crazy-gory.” Here, Cronenberg follows in the footsteps of his famous filmmaker father, David.
In “Possessor,” the consciousness of a contract killer is implanted into the body of another person in order to carry out a murder.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but Phillips writes: “The best of Cronenberg ’s nightmare is pure, imaginative immersion.”
A “She Dies Tomorrow ”: This is a plague story with real relevance, about a virus of sorts that’s passed from person to person. It’s not a pathogen, but an idea: knowing that you will die tomorrow.
Tribune News Service film critic Katie Walsh found it infectious. In her review, Walsh wrote: “Using simple but effective lighting, sound and editing techniques, coupled with performance, director Amy Seimetz creates a terrifyingly unsettling experience of transmission. Editing and sound are superbly intertwined into an unsteady rhythm, as editor Kate Brokaw’s cutting lulls and lingers before it smashes. With a sparse script, this mastery of film craft and form fills in the rest,
creating a sensory cinematic experience of what the characters undergo emotionally.”
Also new on DVD
A “Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone”: A new edit of “The Godfather III” on the 30th anniversary of its release
A “Hawaii Five-0 (2010): The Complete Series”: All 10 seasons of the CBS drama starring Alex O’loughlin and Scott Caan.
A “Mister Roberts”: (1955) Henry Fonda, James Cagney and Jack Lemmon star in John Ford film about misfit crew of World War II supply ship. Lemmon won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role.
A “Bobbleheads: The Movie”: Ballpark novelty gifts come to life.
A “The Secrets She Keeps”: Australian series based on thriller by Michael Robotham.
A “The Sommerdahl Murders”: Danish murder-mystery series based on books by Anna Grue.
A “Faith Under Fire”: Toni Braxton stars as a woman who faces down a gunman at an elementary school.
A “Proxima”: An astronaut (Eva Green) readies herself and her young daughter as she preps for a yearlong mission in space.
A “Smiley Face Killers”: Horror film inspired by urban legend about string of deaths in the Midwest.
“Yellowstone: Season 3”: Kevin Costner stars as patriarch of powerful ranching family.
Digital HD
A “Total Recall”: The 1990 sci-fi hit starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone is available for the first time on 4K Ultra HD in a three-disc set for its 30th anniversary.
A “Collateral”: 2004 thriller starring Tom Cruise as a hitman and Jamie Foxx as the cab driver forced to drive him around Los Angeles. Directed by Michael Mann.
A “The Black Book of Father Dinis”: French film follows the lives of an orphan and his nurse, who both have mysterious pasts. A “Guitar Man”: A failed musician helps at-risk youth.
Dec. 11
A “Noise in the Middle”: Grieving man and his autistic daughter find terrors at haunted B&B.
A “The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee”: Crikey! Paul Hogan goes back to his 1980s Aussie franchise. Co-stars Chevy Chase, John Cleese and Olivia Newton-john.