“You won’t believe the way they smile on stage,” says conductor Troy Peters of the kids in YOSA (Youth Orchestras of San Antonio). “The energy that you get from this group is incredible.”
Some 600 students, mostly high school age kids, are in one of 11 different ensembles at YOSA. They’re the best of the best in South Texas. And putting great musicians together makes for even greater performances.
“When they’re at YOSA, they’re around a bunch of other kids who are on their level,” says Peters, who is Music Director of the organization and conducts the YOSA Philharmonic.
This Sunday at 7:00 p.m. they’ll be on stage at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts with a program called Cinema Classics, featuring not only the grand themes of John Williams, but music by classical composers whose melodies were plucked from the concert hall to be used on screen.
“Howard Hanson’s beautiful Symphony No. 2, which is absolutely gorgeous music from mid-Century America,” Peters explains, “when the first ‘Alien’ movie came out in 1979, Ridley Scott took the end of the first movement of the Hanson symphony and put it over the end of the movie. The Hanson is used beautifully at the end… as Ripley stares off into space.”
Get a preview of the program by listening to a group of young performers in our studio, using the audio player at the top of this page.
