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Youth Orchestras of San Antonio (YOSA) returns this year with Classic Albums Live, its annual tradition of recreating the sound of popular bands using local musicians backed by the young musicians.
Artistic Director Troy Peters explained: “This is part of a 10 year-old tradition now at YOSA, where we play music by great rock, pop, R&B artists. And so we've done everything from The Beatles to Radiohead to the Eagles and Selena. And now this year, we're doing Dancing Queen, a program of the greatest hits of Abba.”
He added: “Abba was originally kind of a Swedish rock band, and so there's a lot of electric guitar and bass and drums and a lot of great energy. And then you combine that with a full orchestra playing all those strings and horn lines.”
“These tunes are just memorable as all get-out," Peters said. "I think there's people who grew up with these songs and love them in the first place, and then, yeah, I think there are people who've fallen in love with them because of Mamma Mia, the Broadway musical.”
Of course, they had to find singers to pull off Abba’s greatest hits.
“We've got four amazing singers," Peters explained. "We went out and cast four San Antonio singers [pictured in the gallery above] to sing all of these vocal harmonies, and they've been working and learning the harmonies and doing a little bit of choreography, and it's going to be a really great show.”
It’s a one-night-only performance, this Saturday at the Tobin.
Find ticket information at YOSA.org.
