By Karen Beacom / April 30, 2016
On Sunday, May 8th at 4pm, The Soo Theatre will host its annual Festival Orchestra Concert under the direction of Dottie Case and Maggie Twining. Nearly 100 musicians will perform on the Soo Theatre stage! Violinists, violists, cellists and bassists will be gathering for Soo Theatre’s annual Festival Orchestra Concert, which is a celebration of string playing featuring musicians from pre-school age through seasoned citizens. The year-end collaborative concert features players from the growing strings program at STARS, joined by guests from JKL Bahweting School’s string program and the Algoma Conservatory Violin Ensemble from Sault, Ontario.
The strings program at STARS (the educational arm of the Soo Theatre) has experienced a surge in growth recently, partly as a result of outreach that the strings faculty has done with the local elementary schools. The word is out: kids can play violins—-and violas and cellos, and even basses, and many are joining the fun. Come and cheer on the beginners, celebrate the progress of the intermediates, and marvel at the advanced strings players that live and are learning right here in the EUP.
Several of the EUP Schools have had a beginning strings class one day a week this spring. St. Mary’s, Washington, Soo Township, and Cedarville schools each have a class that will be combining to play two selections on the concert. These students have only been playing for 6-8 weeks, but you will be amazed at the progress they have made. And you may be interested to know that there will be a summer strings day camp that will run similar to this beginning class. More information will be available at the concert.
STARS Superior Strings, the beginning orchestra, will be playing a complicated rhythmic selection, as well as being joined by Bahweting Strings and Algoma Violin Ensembles for the famous Beethoven’s 9th, also known as “Ode to Joy.” They will be joined by the STARS Youth Orchestra to dazzle you with “Fiddles on Fire.” You won’t be able to keep your toes from tapping on this one!
Our STARS Youth Orchestra, the most advanced of our groups, is a collection of students who have been playing for many years, studying privately and in groups, who are capable of tackling great and compelling works. Under the direction of Dottie Case, the youth orchestra will be playing a selection of classical standards in addition to traditional American folk selections.
The New Horizons strings will feature our adult musicians, most of who took up string playing in their mid-life. This vibrant group of musicians serves to model that truth that it is never too late to learn new things and that music making truly does last a lifetime.
Soo Cello Crew, Soo Theatre’s Youth Cello Choir under the direction of Maggie Twingin, will play a pop song as well as a classic selection and then be joined by Cantus Celli (Soo Theatre’s Adult Cello Choir) to play a traditional American folk song, “Shenandoah.”
The musicians of the Soo Theatre will be joined this year by guests from the JKL Bahweting School strings program, which is the only school strings program between Marquette and Traverse City, and is under the direction of Cathy Wilkinson.
Living on the International Border allows for a great deal of cross-border collaboration in the arts, and people in the arts on both sides of the St. Mary’s River are working together to make quality arts opportunities available to our underserved communities. This year, the younger musicians from the Algoma Conservatory string ensembles under the direction of Anya Mallinger, will be joining our own elementary players, in a cross-border collaboration that we hope is the first of many.
So, join us for our Mother’s Day concert, on May 8 at 4 pm. Admission is by donation at the door. Your presence and support is highly welcome, as we continue to build this exciting program and make quality strings instruction available to students of all ages in our communities.
And save the date for the annual STARS Dance Show WE GOT THE BEAT which will be presented Saturday, May 14 at 2pm at Kewadin Casino’s Dreammaker’s Theater.
