Gaylord Community Orchestra to step back on stage next weekend
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GAYLORD — The Gaylord Community Orchestra is currently hard at work rehearsing to prepare to step back on the stage next weekend.
The orchestra will celebrate spring with its Saturday, May 14 concert featuring music from composers Antonin Dvorak and Franz Schubert. The concert will also feature cellist Evelyn Cho who will perform Dvorak's "Cello Concerto in B minor."
"You will really get a taste of what it's like for an all volunteer orchestra to come together and perform a special show," said orchestra board president Chris Olson.
The orchestra, Olson said, is comprised completely of volunteers ranging in musicians of all types and professions from Grayling north up through Mackinaw City and beyond.
Many of the orchestra's musicians also perform in other various performing groups around the area, including the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra and Northern Michigan Chorale, but Olson said all are anxious to perform together again in Gaylord; especially following its unplanned two-year hiatus.
"We, like may organizations, had a very unplanned vacation with the pandemic and it almost feels like we are restarting but we did have a previous show last year and have been fortunate that the generosity of the community has allowed us to continue on," said Olson.
"We are all very excited, and I'm personally excited, in seeing everyone from the community come out and enjoy what we've been preparing for them," he said.
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Cho, the featured soloist in the upcoming show, is currently a senior at Novi High School and has ben playing the cello for the past 11 years. Her primary studies were also with the former Detroit Symphony Orchestra cellist Paul Wingert.
Throughout her schooling, Cho has received many awards and has racked up a list of accolades, including being selected to perform in the Michigan All-State Honors Orchestra and being nominated as a semifinalist at the DSYO Concerto Competition.
The upcoming performance will also feature Schubert's "Unfinished." The piece is a popular symphony piece and is considered unfinished as he only wrote two movements of the traditional four. Later composers have finished Schubert's work, however, the orchestra will be performing it in its original two-movement format.
"We certainly encourage everyone to come out as it should be a fantastic performance," said Olson.
"To be able to offer live performances again is so wonderful. There is an aspect of community in being part of a concert that is just part of our fabric and we are all anxious and ready to present this concert for everyone," he said.
The Gaylord Community Orchestra's concert will take place on Saturday, May 14 at Gaylord High School's Gornick Auditorium. The concert will being at 7:30 p.m. and will have a pre-concert talk with the orchestra's conductor.
Tickets are available at the door and are $10 for adults. The concert is free for students.
More information about the upcoming performance, and any other orchestra happenings, can be found on its website at www.gaylordorchestra.org.
Contact reporter Sean Miller at smiller@petoskeynews.com. Follow him on Twitter, @seanmillerpnr, and Instagram, @sean_everest.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Gaylord Community Orchestra to step back on stage next weekend
