PORTLAND YOUTH PHILHARMONIC CLOSES 97TH SEASON WITH PYPFEST VOL. 3: RETURN OF THE ORCHESTRA
Posted on May 19, 2021
PYP closes 97th season with PYPFEST Vol. 3: Return of the Orchestra on Saturday, June 5, 2021
PORTLAND, OR – Portland Youth Philharmonic, the nation’s first and oldest youth orchestra, will conclude its 97th concert season with PYPFEST Vol. 3: Return of the Orchestra on Saturday, June 5, 2021, at 7:00 PM PT. The virtual concert will feature 9 world premieres composed for PYP by contemporary voices including women and musicians of color, as part of the Youth Orchestra Commissioning Initiative. “E-tickets” to the final chapter of PYP’s exciting New Music Festival are free or “pay-what-you-can” and available now at www.portlandyouthphil.org/concert.
“I will always remember the rhythm of the pieces that I played this season with PYP’s Conservatory Orchestra,” shares 17-year-old bassoon player Dylan Stone, a junior at Mountainside High School. “Gabriel Meneses’s piece Four Elephants [from PYP’s March 2021 concert] was really catchy and fun, and I often still find myself humming the melody. The composer visiting our Zoom rehearsal was also very meaningful to me. It means a lot to me that he cared enough to give us some kind of special insight that you don’t normally get in music education.”
Over the past year, PYP has commissioned and premiered 31 new works through the Youth Orchestra Commissioning Initiative (YOCI). Conceived by PYP Musical Director David Hattner when it became clear that in-person rehearsals would not be possible for PYP’s 97th season, YOCI strives to connect young musicians with living composers who write new, short chamber music pieces to be practiced, performed, and recorded from home. PYP’s musicians met weekly, rehearsing and receiving instruction from their conductor and music coaches, as well as from the composers themselves, over Zoom. All musicians have been responsible for recording their own individual parts, which were mixed together into an ensemble performance for the virtual concerts. PYP has shared the individual performances from past volumes of PYPFEST on its popular YouTube channel.
A primary goal of YOCI is to address the systemic exclusion of composers of color and women from the standard classical repertoire. Commissioned composers for PYPFEST Vol. 3 include Nicole Buetti, Alfonso Fuentes Colón, Kamran N. Ince, Oregon Symphony Principal Cello Nancy Ives, Texu Kim, Isabella Morrill, Reinaldo Moya, 11-year-old Skye Neal (a participant in FEARnoMUSIC’s Young Composer Project), and PYP alumnus Kevin Walczyk.
The orchestra will close out its 97th season on Saturday, June 5. Due to the ongoing pandemic, “e-tickets” to PYPFEST are offered on free or “pay-what-you-can” fee structure. To receive an email on the day of the concert with the link to watch from home, viewers must visit www.portlandyouthphil.org/concerts to register. Everyone who registers will receive the concert link and a digital PDF of the concert program by email. The link will only be available to those who sign-up for an e-ticket.