The Shenandoah Valley Youth Symphony and Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir present their annual joint fall concert on Sunday, Nov. 24, at 4 p.m. in EMU’s Lehman Auditorium. A $7 donation is requested to benefit the scholarship programs of both SVYS and SVCC.
The concert will begin with the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choirs under assistant director Joy Anderson and artistic director Dr. Janet Hostetter. The choirs will perform a variety of works by composers including Handel and Bernstein, as well as folk songs and traditional gospel blues. The Treble Choir will perform two songs first, followed by the Concert Choir performance.
After intermission, the Shenandoah Valley Youth Symphony will perform the first movement of Max Bruch’s “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor,” and the fourth movement of “Symphony No. 5” by Beethoven. The symphony, conducted by Dr. Yi-Ping Chen, is an auditioned ensemble of high-level middle and high school players from Page, Shenandoah, Rockingham and Augusta counties.
The featured soloist for the Bruch violin concerto is Rachel Helm, daughter of William and Donna Helm of Luray, Va., She has played the violin for 13 years, studying first with Kelly Wiedemann and currently with Sharon Miller. Rachel is a senior at Shenandoah Valley Academy, where she is the concertmaster of the school orchestra. Rachel is co-concertmaster of the Shenandoah Valley Youth Symphony, of which she’s been a member for five years. In June of 2019, Rachel participated in the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival as both an intern and an orchestral fellow. In addition to playing, Rachel has been a volunteer teacher in the after-school violin program at Smithland Elementary School.
The concert will end with the Youth Symphony and SVCC choirs performing two pieces together, an arrangement of the American folk song “Shenandoah,” arranged by Mark Patterson and orchestrated by Eric Guinivan, followed by “Sussex Carol” arranged by Elaine Hagenberg.