Two youth orchestras, musicians from across America and Europe – and yet, after just a few rehearsals, one musical energy. For their joint concert at Young Euro Classic, the Orchestra of the Americas and the Penderecki Youth Orchestra combine their strengths in a program that brings together Penderecki, Brahms and Mexican music by Gabriela Ortiz and Silvestre Revueltas.
Prior to the dress rehearsal, I had the opportunity to speak extensively with four enthusiastic young musicians from both orchestras: American hornist Tori Boell and Panamanian double bassist Joel Vargas Zaldaña, both associated with the Orchestra of the Americas and the OA Academy, and Polish cellist Piotr Olesc and violinist Marta Kubów from the Penderecki Youth Orchestra (PYO). Their stories go beyond music alone and show how two ensembles with different backgrounds also get to know each other as people.
From screen to stage
For Tori, the adventure did not begin in the rehearsal hall, but online. As a participant in the OA Academy, she spent six months studying orchestral works, attending masterclasses and taking lessons with her colleagues from the Orchestra of the Americas, before they even met in person. They recognized each other's faces, learned how each other played and watched each other perform during masterclasses. Yet playing together live turned out to be something completely different. Precisely because they had already got to know each other somewhat as a person and as a musician, according to her, they were able to come together as a section much more quickly.
Joel Vargas recognizes that feeling. He expected a high level from the Polish string players of the PYO – and he got it. At first he was nervous, but once he started playing he quickly felt at ease. What struck him most was how intensely the Polish musicians listen to each other within the string section. He noticed that at first he mainly tried to hear what was already sounding before he added his own sound.
That way of listening made an impression on him. Not trying to immediately impose your own sound, but first understanding what the group has already built: it became one of the lessons he took from the encounter with the PYO.
A chamber orchestra discovers the full orchestra
For the Polish musicians, the challenge lay elsewhere. Piotr and Marta have been playing together in the PYO for several years and know each other's sound inside out. For Marta, this project was special because the PYO normally performs as a chamber orchestra with only strings. For the first time, brass and percussion sections were added. That was not easy at first, she explains, but ultimately it was precisely that expansion that made the music-making richer and more enjoyable.
Piotr describes how quickly the whole thing took shape. Already after the first rehearsal, and certainly after the second, he heard something special emerging. He also saw the collaboration as an opportunity to learn to express emotions in music in a different way. What struck him was how openly the American musicians, according to him, show their emotions. At the same time, he recognized in that something that was not entirely unfamiliar to him from Polish culture. After a few days, according to him, both groups had also found a comparable energy.
For Marta, it was equally about the encounter outside the music. Different cultures and personalities came together, and it was precisely the learning of those other backgrounds that made an important part of the project for her.
Salsa in the double bass section
One of the most beautiful anecdotes comes from Joel Vargas, who tells of a mutual learning process between the bass sections. The Polish bassists helped him thoroughly understand Penderecki's rhythmically complex Ciaccona – a piece that initially frightened him because of its difficult rhythms. He wanted to really understand the work and noticed how much he could learn from the Polish bassists about waiting, listening and placing his part within the whole.
In turn, inspired by his background in Panamanian salsa, he taught the other bassists something about dance rhythm and feeling in the pizzicato passages of Gabriela Ortiz's work. He explained to them how they could create more rhythmic flexibility and a more dancing feeling with their fingers and movement.
In the bass section, cultural exchange took on a very concrete form: not one group teaching the other something, but musicians influencing each other mutually.
A program that moves from familiar to unexpected
The concert program itself – Penderecki, Brahms and then Revueltas and Ortiz – surprised the musicians themselves at first as well. In Europe, Brahms typically comes at the end of a concert, but here it sounds right at the beginning. Even the musicians had to get used to that at first.
Tori explains the structure: the concert deliberately begins with the familiar. Penderecki aligns with the repertoire that the musicians of the PYO are well acquainted with, while Brahms is a masterpiece with which virtually every audience can have a connection. From there, the program moves towards something more energetic and less well-known: the work of Revueltas, with unusual percussion instruments and increasingly intensive interplay between the sections. The energy builds from section to section. According to Tori, the final piece by Ortiz is then "a completely different game". The work was written for conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, who therefore has a special personal connection to it. Ultimately, the program culminates in what she almost describes as one big Mexican dance party.
Marta calls the program surprising precisely because the two halves connect so well. She is especially impressed by the way conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto handles all the different repertoire. Whether it's Penderecki and Brahms or the Mexican works, according to her he approaches everything with the same depth and precision. Piotr adds that the program encompasses an enormous emotional range: from the restrained, death-related emotions of Penderecki's Ciaccona, written in memory of Pope John Paul II, through the romantic, almost heroic love of Brahms, to the exuberant joy of the Mexican works.
Tori finally points out that the program also reflects the international composition of the joint orchestra. On stage are countries from throughout the Americas and Europe represented, while Penderecki, Brahms, Ortiz and Revueltas each bring a different musical and cultural world.
What they want to convey to the audience
Joel Vargas hopes above all that no one falls asleep during the surprises of Revueltas, and that people smile at the end. He himself often smiles at the audience while playing. While playing, he sometimes looks at the faces in the hall and wonders whether the listeners are truly experiencing the melodies and the energy.
Marta hopes that the listeners sense something of the connection and energy that the two orchestras have built together – not only what sounds, but also the relationships and memories that have emerged during this project.
Tori hopes above all that the concert will spark curiosity about music beyond familiar cultural boundaries. She would find it wonderful if someone afterwards thinks: I've never heard music from Mexico: what is salsa actually, what is merengue, and what are the differences between music from Mexico and Panama? For her, the concert can be an opportunity to listen further and discover other musical worlds.
And Piotr hopes that the audience, by listening attentively, will go home after the concert with a noticeably changed feeling. That the different emotions the music evokes change something in the listener, even if only in a small way.
What remains is a program that, in Marta's words, is best summed up with one word: unexpected.
But what does such a meeting sound like when the lessons, rehearsals and conversations are over and only the music speaks? You can read that in the review of the concert: https://klassiek-centraal.be/wanneer-twee-jeugdorkesten-een-stem-worden/
An interview with conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto you can read here: https://klassiek-centraal.be/muziek-is-een-absolute-barometer-van-het-leven-in-gesprek-met-dirigent-carlos-miguel-prieto/