EYSO season to culminate in digital festival
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. » The Empire State Youth Orchestra recently announced that its 40th anniversary season will culminate in a digital festival featuring 13 ensembles and more than 400 young musicians from around the Capital Region.
The three-night digital festival streams online on Facebook Watch and YouTube nightly at 7 p.m., beginning Thursday, June 11 through Saturday, June 13.
The festival’s title, Sounding Together, comes from the root meaning of the word “symphony.”
The Sounding Together Digital Festival is a first- of-a-kind performance for ESYO and a direct result of the orchestra’s commitment to playing through New York’s COVID-19 pause.
“This festival is a celebration of learning and a testament to the resiliency of our young music- makers,” Rebecca Calos, ESYO’s executive director, said in a press release. “Like many schools and orchestras across the country, we’ve been challenged to learn, rehearse, and perform, apart and online. I’m so proud of the remarkable creativity of our musicians and the dedicated conductors and teaching artists that have inspired ESYO to keep playing.”
The concept of Sounding Together started after a group of ESYO musicians and friends formed a virtual Jazz combo. Each member recorded their part at home using their cell phone, then ESYO musician Sam Hatfield mixed and produced the video.
Similar projects occurred within the orchestra after music director Carlos Ágreda, who has also been actively making music online with colleagues across the country, challenged members of the orchestra to collaborate and perform chamber music together online.
The Sounding Together Digital Festival is set to feature many of the student-produced videos alongside virtual performances of all 13 ESYO ensembles and the virtual premiere of Ágreda’s original composition, “Ay Caray!”
With the help of Griffin Bengraff, a digital media arts major at the College of St. Rose, Ágreda began reworking “Ay Caray!” into a composition for a virtual orchestra.
“It was a process, and it was challenging,” Ágreda said in the release. “The idea of synchronizing home performances in a grid-view video is not new, but we wanted to find a way to build an innovative virtual orchestra experience. What can we do that we wouldn’t be able to do if we were in person? How does a conductor fit in a virtual performance if he/she/they don’t have the musicians in front of them?
That is how we came with the idea of creating the first ever VR/360° orchestra.”
Using VR technology and spatial audio, Bengraff was able to create an immersive experience that places the audience in the center of the orchestra.
“For this project, we wanted to create a new virtual orchestra experience,” Bengraff added. “In order to reflect the magnitude of a symphony orchestra, we adapted a traditional 180- degree orchestral layout into a new 360-degree space.”
Festival highlights include ESYO’s Wind Ensemble performing “Amazing Grace” with composer/ arranger Jay Dawson; a quilted performance of “What a Wonderful World” by Concertino Strings; music by the Jazz and Percussion Ensembles; digital concerts by Concertino Winds and Brass; and athome performances by members of CHIME, String Orchestra, and the Lois Lyman Concerto Competition winner William Lauricella and finalist Elihu Conant-Haque.
The festival also includes Senior Spotlights to honor the ESYO Class of 2020, student reflections on playing through the pause, and dedications to front line healthcare heroes, first responders and Capital Region teachers.