June is traditionally designated as Youth Month. As South Africa honours our young people in the weeks ahead, a major highlight in store for scores of young people will be the national tour of the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO), under the baton of its celebrated inspirational mentor, Benjamin Zander.
Maestro Zander is a well-known proponent of using music to change societies and lives, especially through his chanelling of young people. Under his aegis, BPYO has won the esteem of major critics across the United States, saluting its brilliant young players for upending expectations, proclaiming the musical maturity that manifests from its players, not in spite of, but because of their youth.
The Chicago Tribune hailed the group’s inaugural recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 as one of the top 10 classical releases of 2017. New York Arts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Lloyd Schwartz called it “one of the most thrilling Mahler performances I’ve ever heard.”
So, it comes as no surprise that BPYO’s tour will include side-by-side collaborations with young musicians around South Africa. These initiatives, seen in the light of the massive youth unemployment and often a lack of access to resources and opportunities for young South Africans, are of special significance. Music is a pathway to changing lives and futures.
Running in tandem with BPYO’s concert itinerary, a focal point of the tour will be its interactions with local ensembles and musicians in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Soweto and Cape Town. These include members of the University of Pretoria Symphony Orchestra and Hugo Lambrechts Symphony Orchestra, who will form intense side-by-side partnerships with the visiting artists, performing South African, European and American repertoire, as well as sharing leisure time together, outside of rehearsal and performance times.
On 16 June the BPYO will participate in Youth Day Celebrations and a street parade in Soweto with the renowned Field Band Foundation, one of South Africa’s most famous socio-musical youth initiatives that has enabled more than 30 000 children, from under-resourced geographical areas across South Africa, to learn, enjoy and grow with music. On 17 June, 30 BPYO musicians will meet and play at the Morris Isaacson Music Centre in Soweto (Regina Mundi RC Church. The AfrikaRiz Choir will open this concert.
Moving on to Cape Town, 19 June will mark a spectacular high point of the tour, as more than 200 South African and Americans young artists joyously make music together. The historic event will see BPYO teaming up with Settlers High School Orchestra, Bellville High School Symphonic Wind Band, DF Malan High School Wind Band, Fairbairn College, Westerford High School Symphony Orchestra, San Souci and Rustenburg Girls High Schools and Rondebosch Boys High School.
Benjamin Zander is a global champion of the transformative power of classical music. He continues his lifelong crusade in helping young musicians and potential audiences alike to realize the untapped love for its glories and open themselves up to new possibilities, new experiences, new connections. A life force to be reckoned with.
–
For more Information, as well as the tour’s Concert Itinerary and to Book, visit: https://www.classicalmovements.com/bpyo-south-africa-tour/
