Introducing NYOI 2012

Today, 92 young musicians arrived in Kilkenny from all corners of Ireland to start 6 days of intense rehearsals in preparation for their concert next Monday 2nd January at 3pm in the Helix. For more info on the concert or to book tickets click here.

In the meantime we'll give you a peek behind the scenes of the NYOI course throughout our week of rehearsals.

We'll start by introducing you to the orchestra...

A few stats on NYOI 2012
There are 92 musicians in the orchestra
The youngest is 12, the oldest is 18
20 counties are represented: Antrim, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Waterford, Westmeath, Wicklow, Cork
There are 8 sets of brothers & sisters in the orchestra
Each year everyone must re-audition for NYOI, this year's orchestra sees the return of 48 musicians from last year and welcomes 44 new members
There are 56 girls and 36 boys

Meet the orchestra

1st violins - tutored by Brona Fitzgerald
David, Colma, William, Anna Livia, Molly, Luke, Phoebe, Claire, David, Emma, Emer, Saffron, Abbie, Rebecca, Richard & Breanainn

2nd violins - tutored by Ken Rice
Devin, Conor, Abbie, Aisling, Andrew, Mark, Abbie, Elizabeth, Chan, Hannah, Jessica, Maggie, Johanna, Molly, Jessica, Sarah

violas - tutored by Lisa Grosman
Martin, Aoife, Martha, Ciara, Harriet, Theo, Philip, Meabh, Ciara, Iseult

cellos - tutored by Bill Butt
Sinead, Rory, Patrick, Genevieve, Ellen, Jessie, Cormac, Caitriona, Jacqui, Lucy, Siobhan, Meabhdh

double basses - tutored by Aura Stone
Aisling, Niall, Sophie, Daire, Amy

flutes - tutored by Catriona Ryan
Amy, Mary-Ellen, Michéal, Cian

oboes - tutored by Ronan O'Reilly
Lukas, Hugh, Deirdre

clarinets - tutored by Paul Roe
Seamus, Cian, Fionnuala, Ciara

bassoons - tutored by Ates Kirkan
Ronan, Aisling, John

horns - tutored by Lesley Bishop
Peter, Eimear, Caoime, Louise, Donal

trumpets - tutored by David Collins
Patrick, Paul, Christian, Senan

trombones & tuba - tutored by Paul Frost
Clara, Conall, Adam, Conall

percussion - tutored by Richard O'Donnell
Clare, Conall, Seán, Siobhan

harps - tutored by Andreja Malir
Meabh and Clara

After travelling the country and meeting hundreds of young musicians at auditions and after hundreds of emails and phonecalls, it's so exciting to see NYOI together for the first time this year.

Tomorrow we're going to follow a section of the orchestra for a day to show you what a day in the life of an NYOI musician looks like. Leave us a comment here or on our facebook page and let us know which section of the orchestra's shoes you'd like to walk in for a day?!

Over and out for day 1!
Zoe

A Musical Exhibition Part One

If you have been following the NYOI 2012 season plans you will know that we have a very special performance of Mussorsgky's Pictures at an Exhibition in January 2012, if not click here for more info.

The first part of this project was for the NYOI team and and the National Gallery Education Team to design a workshop that would inspire primary school children to create their own piece of art inspired by Pictures at an Exhibition (the music!) and the collection at the National Gallery of Ireland (the art!). In October, children from Cherry Orchard National School were invited to the National Gallery and with clip boards and crayons at the ready they were guided around the gallery and listened to the music. Eimear Saunders, music teacher at Cherry Orchard Performing Arts Club, writes below about the experience.

"Here in Cherry Orchard, the preparations for our role in the NYOI concert started in September. In COPAC (Cherry Orchard Performing Arts Club), the theme for this term is Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at An Exhibition’. We hit the ground running, and from our first session we made it our mission to get to know the piece from as many different angles as possible. In our orchestra class we have been learning ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’, in our singing group we’ve been learning ‘The Old Castle’ and in our art class we practised drawing portraits in preparation for what would be the big event of the term. We also listened to some of the other movements and talked about what we thought the music could be about.

All of our exploration and hard work proved worthwhile when we had the privilege of visiting the National Gallery. We were welcomed by Libby, Brina and Aoibheann and armed with pencils, crayons and paper, we got to work. First of all we listened to some movements from the piece, this time letting our pencils move with the music, coming up with some very interesting designs in the process! Then we got to see some of the Gallery’s fabulous paintings starting with the drama of Denby’s ‘The Opening of the Sixth Seal. We looked at paintings that matched the themes from ‘Pictures’ and sketched aspects of each one.

After we visited the gallery, it was the gallery’s turn to visit us, and art tutor Libby came to see us in COPAC. There we put together our designs from listening to the music along with the different aspects we had sketched from the paintings in the gallery, to create our very own ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’."

‘Going to the National Gallery was a dream come true for me’
Caitlin



Isn't this just fab?! I love Caitlin's quote at the end and having visited the Gallery with the school group I know that they were all totally captivated by the music and the fantastic stories behind the artwork. Well done to Libby (the art tutor) and Eimear (author of the above and music tutor) for all their hard work and for making it so enjoyable for the kids!

The finshed art work has now arrived in the NYOI office and I am so excited about having a look through it and working on the big unveiling of this work alongside NYOI's performance on Monday 2nd January 2012!

Until the next time...
Zoe

Details of the 2011/2012 season announced and find out how you can get involved

The National Youth Orchestra of Ireland’s upcoming season offers unrivalled opportunities to learn and perform great symphonic music with new friends. Along the way you will be mentored by some of the finest professional orchestral musicians in Ireland and work under the baton of professional conductors.

Talking about conductors, yesterday, listeners to RTÉ lyric fm's Lunchtime Classics were given a preview of what is to come for the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland in their 2011/2012 season. Liz Nolan interviewed Zoe Keers, General Manager of NYOI, and Lukas O'Brien, oboist with NYOI and announced the very exciting news that Principal Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Alan Buribayev, is to conduct NYOI next summer! Buribayev's wonderful insight into Russian repertoire will make the learning and performance of Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 an incredible experience for Ireland's finest young musicians.


NYOI is proud of the thousands of young musicians who have graduated through our orchestras over the last 41 years and this year we are delighted to welcome back three NYOI Alumni of outstanding promise: Brian O’Kane (cello), Fiona Kelly (flute) and Jean Kelly (harp).

Sisters Fiona and Jean Kelly look forward to returning to NYOI next summer, this time as soloists in Mozart's Concerto for flute and harp. Fiona Kelly, who has been hailed by the New York Times as a player with “impressive technique and elegant musicianship”, recently completed her Master’s degree at The Juilliard School, New York, studying with Robert Langevin. Fiona won first prize in The Juilliard School Flute Competition and performed Bernstein’s ‘Halil’ with The Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky at The Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Lincoln Center. Jean Kelly leads a busy life as a professional harpist. Jean regularly tours with the Locrian Ensemble performing harp concertos and her own arrangements of Irish music and has recorded three CD's with the group. In 2011 Jean was invited to Dublin to play for the historic visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II. She has also played at Buckingham Palace for HRH Prince Charles' birthday and has played harp on several film scores including 'The Lord of the Rings'.

The first NYOI meeting of the season will take place, as usual, during the Christmas holidays. A new group of young musicians will once again start the season under the baton of NYOI's wonderful conductor Gearóid Grant to prepare for a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Bruch's Kol nidrei with cellist Brian O'Kane. A busy soloist and chamber musician, Brian came to prominence by taking first prize at the Windsor Festival International String Competition and is also a former prizewinner of the Haverhill Sinfonia and Royal Overseas League Competitions. In early 2008, Brian won the Prince’s Prize of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and is a former winner of the Accenture Bursary Award and Camerata Ireland Young Musician Award. In that same year, Brian performed with Camerata Ireland in Dublin’s National Concert Hall under Barry Douglas and with the Philharmonia Orchestra at Highgrove before the Prince of Wales. He recently appeared again with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy at the 2009 Windsor Festival.

NYOI's 2011/2012 Season promises to be the pinnacle of orchestral experience for young musicians ages 12-18 in Ireland. From exciting repertoire to inspirational conductors and soloists who started where you are - what are you waiting for?! Applications for audition open on Monday 5th September and close on Monday 17th October. Application forms will be available from our website on Monday 5th September.

We look forward to receiving your application!

Guide to the Orchestra by Cian Ducrot

As the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland filed onto stage on Friday and Saturday night they just kept on coming... 94 players, 14 sections and over 25 different instruments...

Here is Cian Ducrot's guide to the orchestra (MTV cribs style!)

Guide to the orchestra "MTV cribs" style from NYOI on Vimeo.

How many clothes can a musician wear?

Read our website and you will be amazed and possibly shocked to discover that 93 teenagers can rehearse intensely for 8 hours a day on a week long course. Further shocking statistics include the fact that these teenagers are interested in watching a DVD of the Berlin Philharmonic performing Mahler Symphony No. 1 (after rehearsing it for over 8 hours that day). They are quite simply the most awesome group of teenagers. Despite their commitment and dedication to music, they are also infectiously fun! You can’t be around them and not smile! Come to their concerts and they will literally blow you away

http://www.nyoi.ie/events/event/summer-2011-nyoi-under-18s/

BUT this blog is all about showing you the other side of NYOI…

Like the students of Hogwarts in Harry Potter, NYOI were sorted into teams at the beginning of the 2011 summer course. While the famous Hogwarts artefact, “the sorting hat”, magically determines which house each student belongs to in Harry Potter, a person’s choice of instrument has determined which team they belong to. Often, instrument choice reflects a person’s personality… but we’ll delve into that a little later in our Guide to the Orchestra.

For now all you need to know is that the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland has seven teams competitively vying for “house points”: 1^st violins, 2^nd violins, violas, cellos, basses & percussion, woodwind and brass.

Each musician can gain or lose points for their team based on their punctuality, participation, working cooperatively with fellow musicians, following instructions or completing tasks on time. As well, points may be gained or lost for their team based on achievement in evening activities such as sports, entertainment and downright crazy stuff… including…

Check out this short clip of teams competing for the title of "Team that can collectively wear the most clothes!"

Untitled from NYOI on Vimeo.

Can you Handel this?

There is of course always the compulsory table quiz during the NYOI course... but these days the correct answer is just at the touch of an iPhone... so we wanted some "outside the box" thinking, some imagination and creativity and here are some of the best bits!

Draw a picture of a three-legged ostrich race...

Come up with a musical pun...
You can't Handel this
We're bringing sexy Bach
Your pp is too big
The horns violated the cellorando soh the conductor gave them a Hayden
Playing soft is not your forte
If you can't find someone to sing with you, you've got to duet by yourself


We are working on a brilliant Guide to the Orchestra video blog... stay tuned!

Love from NYOI x

Summer Proms 2011

NYOI's final activity for the 2011 Season is just around the corner. Next Saturday, 25th June, 93 young musicians will descend upon Kilkenny College for the Summer Course. A week of intense rehearsal will be led by our fantastic group of professional musicians and conductor Garry Walker.

Follow our blog as we promise to entertain you throughout NYOI's week of rehearals.. and until then, why not book tickets to one of our concerts!