AYS Concert

Celebrate a concert fifty years in the making on Sunday, February 5 at 2 pm at Popejoy Hall when the Albuquerque Youth Symphony -- along with choruses from Eldorado High School, Albuquerque Academy, Albuquerque Boy Choir and members of the New Mexico Symphonic Chorus -- perform "Carmina Burana." The original Albuquerque Youth Symphony concert featuring Carl Orff's "Carmina Burmina" was in 1961 when Dr. Kurt Frederick led the first youth orchestral performance of Carl Orff's seminal piece in the United States.

In addition, La Cueva H. S. senior Hailey Buster, a flutist, will play Charles Grifffes' composition "Poem." Buster is one of three concerto soloists selected this year through a rigorous audition process. "I selected the piece because of its slow lyrical beauty and its technical demands," she says.

The program will also feature Verdi's overture, "La Forza del Destino."

For Kristine Purrington, AYSP Executive Director, the February 5th event marks a new era in the organization's history. "In 1961, the Albuquerque Youth Symphony consisted of a single mixed group of junior and high school students practicing in borrowed buildings. Today, we have eight groups and have just purchased a permanent home," she says.

"The concert in February is only the second time the Albuquerque Youth Symphony has played 'Carmina Burana' and, in the first, they couldn't perform the entire work," says Music Director Gabriel Gordon. "This concert will have major soloists and so many more participants. In a way, it represents our future . . . our next 50 years."

Admission to the concert is $10. Money raised this year will go toward the AYS tour to Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic in June 2012.