Fresh off a Kennedy Center performance, this youth orchestra looks beyond COVID-19

Strings soared, then went silent. Brass rang out in triumph, then rang off. In four weeks, Youth Orchestras of Charlotte hit the highest point in its two-year history — a February performance at the Kennedy Center — and then plummeted to the coronavirus low all musicians share this spring.

Yet like bulbs under snowy ground, administrators and performers wait to re-emerge. They’re auditioning students now — electronically, of course — for the four groups under their umbrella: Youth Orchestra of Charlotte, Preparatory Orchestra, Sinfonia Strings and Flute Choir. Music director and conductor Ernest Pereira chooses repertoire for the day musicians can rehearse and play together. Executive director and manager Chris Rydel seeks funding from ever-supportive parents and outside sources.

At the moment, they’re basking in the afterglow of half an hour of bliss in Washington, D.C.

The YOC played Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol” and movements from Manuel de Falla’s “The Three-Cornered Hat” at the Capital Orchestra Festival. They shared the Kennedy Center program with youth orchestras from New Jersey, Connecticut and New York in the annual performance organized by Music Celebrations International. The YOC, which auditioned via recordings, was one of four select orchestras chosen to perform at the festival.

“I sometimes get to be an auxiliary percussionist, and I was playing the gong in the de Falla,” Rydel said. “To sit through that performance onstage, hearing those musicians play in the zone — that was remarkable.”

“I had heard concerts there but never played there,” Pereira added. “It’s a beautiful hall with great acoustics; you hear everything right across the room, so the sound of the woodwinds just boomed out. Being in a great hall makes a difference, and the kids felt that.”

A trip to Washington, D.C.

Because the YOC has education as its mission, planners crammed activities into the three-day weekend: museum visits, a cruise down the Potomac, the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by one musician from each of the four orchestral sections.

Then came the return to Charlotte to prepare for May concerts at Halton Theater, which most likely won’t happen now, thanks to COVID-19. Preparations continue for an August orchestra camp and a September performance at Festival in the Park.

Luckily, the organization held one day of in-person auditions before the pandemic, and Pereira said that’s where most new applicants tried out; those submitting videos generally have YOC experience already. He’ll have spots for 200 to 205 musicians in the four groups combined.

“We can’t judge sight-reading online, but they can play scales and orchestral excerpts,” he said. “So it’s pretty much judging apples to apples. We can hear rhythm, intonation and other important things.”

Rydel said the main variation in video quality is the recording device — “We don’t hold it against people doing them on cell phones” — and though auditions officially run through May 1, YOC will hold rolling auditions later to accommodate kids whose instruments remain locked inside schools. (Apply at youthorchestrasofcharlotte.org/auditions.)

Players who get in will find Pereira’s expectations remain lofty at the start of the third season.

“My philosophy has always been to set the bar pretty high, and kids have responded to that,” he said. “They don’t want me to dumb down anything. We were just preparing (Debussy’s) “La Mer,” a big undertaking for youth orchestras, when (the pandemic) hit, and we might bring that back. It’s a draw for kids to aim at something they may not think they can achieve.”

He likes to feature soloists from the orchestra, such as concertmaster Caroline Smoak in Barber’s violin concerto or bassoonist Zachary VonCannon in Mozart’s concerto. They’re starting to get noticed elsewhere: Smoak won the Nashville Symphony’s 2020 Curb Concerto Competition, and associate concertmaster Andrew DeWeese made the violin section of the 2020 National Youth Orchestra.

Planning for the future

Rydel said parents remain the main financial backers, often asking employers for matching gifts, and she’s starting to find outside support. Sometimes it finds her: One trumpet player belongs to the Boy Scouts of America, and someone affiliated with his troop heard a concert. That person asked the Martha and Spencer Love Foundation to pitch in, and its grants have bought a significant amount of music for the music library, and helped to rent several pieces of music over the last two seasons.

Even in stasis, the YOC plans to expand its offerings and community connections. It played a Halloween concert last fall before a “Poltergeist” screening at the Mint Museum of Art uptown. Now Rydel and Pereira are talking to other venues and arts groups about concerts or orchestral backing for dance. They may ask Music Celebrations International to give them an opportunity overseas next time.

Pereira also hopes to offer more master classes like the one taught in February by David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Another star violinist, Hyeyung Yoon, came to play Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the YOC. She knew Pereira when he conducted the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Orchestra, where she was concertmaster in the 1990s.

“Having my own student come back was a highlight for me,” he said. “She had a big career with the Chiara String Quartet, who recently went their separate ways. It was so inspiring for the kids to see someone who was a kid in an orchestra like this and went onto an international career. That could happen to one of them.”

This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.

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This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 6:30 AM.