Centenary Youth Orchestra fall concert is November 7
SHREVEPORT, LA — The Centenary Youth Orchestra (CYO) will present its fall 2022 concert on Monday, November 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Anderson Auditorium at Centenary’s Hurley School of Music. The concert, featuring music from both classical and contemporary composers as well as a world premiere violin concerto by Centenary sophomore Dominick Benedetto, is free and open to the public.
In addition to the world premiere composition by Benedetto, the CYO fall concert program includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 in A-major, K. 201; Fauré’s Pavane, op 50; Bartok’s Rumanian Folk Dances for small orchestra; and highlights from John Williams’s famous score for the Jurassic Park films.
Benedetto is a music composition major from Dallas, Texas and a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. He originally began his Violin Concerto no. 1 in A as a high school senior. Although he had composed other pieces for smaller groups, the concerto was his first foray into writing for a large orchestra.
“I did research on concerto form and decided I wanted to style the piece after a classical concerto,” explained Benedetto. “I wrote the tune for the first movement, but got stuck in a rut until my freshman year at Centenary, where I met Dr. James Eakin, who teaches composition. I was immediately inspired by him and finished the first movement by the end of my first semester.”
Benedetto’s concerto contains three movements and is structured similarly to many Classical/romantic concertos, beginning with a fast first movement, transitioning to a slow second movement, and concluding with a third movement that is fast but more dramatic. The CYO will play the second movement with Benedetto. This movement is slow, calm, and contains references to violin concertos by Romantic composers such as Bruch and Wieniawski.
The CYO provides college-level playing experiences for advanced instrumentalists ages 13 and above. CYO members perform repertoire for strings, woodwinds, and brass in both chamber and large-scale orchestral settings.
A live stream of the concert will be available on the Centenary Youth Orchestra’s Facebook page at facebook.com/centenaryyouthorchestra.