ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 7, 1997 TAG: 9703070014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SALLY HARRIS THE ROANOKE TIMES
The Roanoke Youth Symphony performs Sunday. Several members are driven young musicians from the New River Valley.
It's as if they were born with an extra gene that makes them crave music the way some people crave chocolate or football or running, as if their DNA would have musical notes spliced at regular intervals.
They are the members of the Roanoke Youth Symphony, youngsters of all ages who spend a huge amount of their nonschool hours rehearsing and playing in symphonies and bands or composing musical scores or symphonies.
Of the 83 youth-symphony members, 18 of them make the drive of nearly an hour from the New River Valley to Roanoke to rehearse more than two hours each Sunday, according to Todd Lacy, youth symphony manager.
They carve the time out of their crowded schedules - which include such varied activities as martial arts, soccer and acting - because they love the music and being with others who love it and performing it for audiences who appreciate it. And they are, Lacy said, "some of our best talents."
These are young people who, practically from their infancy, craved music. "When I was little, I would see all these orchestras and begged my parents to buy me a violin," said Olga Sharova, a senior at Blacksburg High School who studies violin with David Salness of the Audubon Quartet. Sharova has been playing with the youth symphony about two seasons and violin seven years.
"I've been involved with music pretty much all my life," said Patrick Turner, a sophomore at Blacksburg High. He started out playing violin, then switched to bass in the middle-school band. He fell in love with the bass and studies with Bob Thomas of No Strings Attached.
Tim Nelson, a junior at Christiansburg High School, started playing the piano when he was 5. "My sister was playing piano, and I was jealous of her and wanted piano lessons," he said. "I guess I complained enough." He still studies piano with Yelena Baladanova at the Renaissance Music Academy in Blacksburg, but he plays French horn in the symphony - and other instruments when he composes.
Chris Steger, a senior at Blacksburg High and the principal bassoonist with the youth symphony, wanted to join the band six or seven years ago and asked the director what instrument he should play. Because he has big hands, something necessary for playing bassoon, the director suggested that instrument. He liked it.
"Steger is a really good bassoonist and is getting better all the time," youth-symphony conductor James Glazebrook said. Steger studies with Barbara Duke of Radford University.
Playing in the Roanoke Youth Symphony provides these musicians an outlet for their talents. "It's really fun playing all this music and being part of creating the music," Sharova said.
"Students who learn to play string instruments don't have very many social outlets for their music," said Glazebrook. For that reason, the Roanoke Youth Symphony has become regional, including students from Lynchburg, Lexington and Martinsville as well as Roanoke and the New River Valley.
Of the 17 seniors in the symphony graduating this year, at least six plan to major in music, Glazebrook said, and he believes the symphony is one factor in that choice. "There's a fair number for whom this has become a life calling, but for most of the kids it's an activity that gives them a satisfaction - not always the same satisfaction for each kid."
Glazebrook's purpose in conducting the orchestra "is to make people fall in love with this music, symphonic music."
Much popular music, Glazebrook said, "has a very cramped emotional range" that does not give teen-agers help with expressing their many emotions. "We provide them a broader range," he said.
The orchestra also has status in the community. The young people get to play for crowds in the civic center and make trips to interesting places. "There's a feeling of mastery in doing something well and making progress in that mastery," Glazebrook said.
Besides the standard symphonic repertoire of pieces such as Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" and Sibelius's "Finlandia," Glazebrook includes some show tunes such as the "Overture to West Side Story" and "Raider's March" from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." But "the orchestra would rebel if we did nothing but pops," Glazebrook said. "They like to do the big pieces, too."
Sharova, for example, likes the beauty of pieces by Mozart and Vivaldi. "I think it's interesting to learn how to play 'Star Wars,'" she said. "It's something everybody knows. When we play it for an audience, we can see the audience is reacting." However, she said, she likes concertos and more classical works.
Playing "Star Wars," Steger said, requires different techniques because "there are some things not usually required in a classical repertoire," such as unorthodox rhythms. Steger understandably prefers "generally the ones with the best bassoon parts" and said "Night on Bald Mountain" has a fun bassoon part.
All these youth-symphony members lead full and varied lives, with music at the core. Sharova, for example, takes martial arts - karate, hsing, tai chi, and pa kua. "It's good physical exercise," she said, "and I have a lot of fun."
Steger plays soccer, has run indoor track and plays in the school band. He also is president of the National Honor Society chapter at his school.
Turner plays standard bass in the high-school band and bass guitar in the high-school jazz and Latino bands. He participates in drama and is on the forensics team. He writes songs, including the lyrics, writes poetry and composes classical music.
Nelson composed "A New Beginning for Rag" when he was in the fifth grade and has kept on composing. His opera "Birds Fly Free" had a hearing this past summer at the St. Paul United Methodist Church in Christiansburg. He is working on a symphony in four movements based on a Langston Hughes poem paralleling the four stages of life. He is also composing a new musical to Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina."
"He's really a rather good composer," Glazebrook said, adding that Nelson composes "fairly substantial, ambitious music" and that, "if he keeps it up, he's ahead of the game."
Some of the Roanoke Youth Symphony members would like to make a career of music. "If I could have everything my way," Nelson said, "I'd like to go to Julliard and major in composition and write for musical theater." However, one has to decide, he said, between musical theater, which could pay money, and classical, which won't. "I haven't decided yet," he said."
Turner would like to go to a college with a good strong music program, get a music education degree, and perhaps play in his own music group. He will get a second degree, probably in English or writing.
Others, however, plan careers in different fields. Sharova plans to go into medicine. "But music could be a hobby. I'll play for myself." Steger hopes to go to a school with a good orchestra or band in which he can play, but he plans to major in a science, perhaps physics.
For all these students, music is an integral part of life. "I suppose there's a lot of similarity in music and life in general," Turner said. "There are things you can learn from both of them. A symphony is an example of what humans can do if they work together. If they work together toward a single goal, amazing things can be achieved."
THE YOUTH SYMPHONY program will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday in Preston Auditorium, Radford University.
LENGTH: Long : 133 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/THE ROANOKE TIMES. The Youth Symphony programby CNBincludes Overture to "West Side Story" by Leonard Bernstein, "Night
on Bald Mountain" by Modeste Mussorgsky, Prelude to Act III of
"Lohengrin" by Richard Wagner, "Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius and
"Raider's March" by John Williams. color.