For the first time in its 50-year history, the Tucson Junior Strings has been invited to the grownups’ table.
More than a dozen members of the youth ensemble’s Chamber 1 and Chamber 2 orchestras will join the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra this weekend for SASO’s season finale. The kids will perform Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence” and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 at SASO’s concert Saturday, April 14, in SaddleBrooke, and on Sunday, April 15, at Oro Valley’s St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.
“I consider it a nice thing to do and a good thing for my kids to do,” said TJS director Dennis Bourret, who has led the program since 1970, two years after it was organized. His wife, Ann Bourret, was one of the founders.
SASO music director Linus Lerner said he saw the group rehearse and liked what he saw, so he extended the invite.
“I want to do things with everybody. Let’s make music together,” Lerner said. “For me it’s about building bridges and making partnerships with the music institutions.”
TJS, meanwhile, also captured the attention of Tucson Symphony Orchestra music director José Luis Gomez. Last week, Gomez stepped in to lead the group in a rehearsal.
TJS has been training young musicians from the ages of 8 to 18 for generations. Among its alumni is former TSO violinist Ben Nisbet, who still works with the symphony and runs the popular St. Andrew’s Bach Society summertime classical music series.
Bourret said his young musicians aren’t the least bit nervous about the performance.
“These kids are seasoned performers,” he said. “They want to do it. They are excited about it.”
The youth orchestra will close out its season with concerts May 12 and 13.
SASO’s season finale also includes guest appearances by TSO concertmaster Lauren Roth, who will perform Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2; and Pima Community College music prof Mark Nelson, an accomplished tuba player, soloing on Adriana Isabel Figueroa Mana’s “Tango Images III” with the SASO strings.
The orchestra also will host 18-year-old harpist Claire Thai, winner of SASO’s Dorothy Vanek Youth Concerto Competition, in a performance of a movement from Alberto Ginastera’s Harp Concerto.
