JEFFERSONVILLE – A new nonprofit orchestra serving southern Indiana and Louisville is focused on providing concerts accessible to all.

The Derby City Chamber Orchestra will perform its first concert at 3 p.m. Sunday at First Presbyterian Church, 222 Walnut St. in Jeffersonville. The event is free to the public.

David Borman III is the founder, artistic director and conductor of the Derby City Chamber Orchestra, as well as the musical director of the First Presbyterian Church. He recently completed a master’s degree in musical performance in conducting from the University of Louisville.

The goal was to create a “live” chamber orchestra in Jeffersonville that removes barriers to orchestral performance, Borman said. The plan is to eventually offer about four concerts per year.

“I want people in the community, whatever their socio-economic status, whatever their day-to-day life, to be able to come and listen to music, no matter how much money they have in the bank at the end of the day. the day, ”he said. .

Borman said the orchestra is focused on showcasing artists who are under-represented in the classical music world, including LGBTQ artists, women and people of color. Andrew Herald, a non-binary composer from Louisville, presents a new work titled “Dark Tides” at the concert.

The concert will also include the local premiere of a concerto for double violin by 18th century French composer Joseph Bologne, Knight of St. George, who is the oldest European composer of African descent.

The Derby City Chamber Orchestra brings in “world-class performers,” said Borman, and Sunday’s concert will feature solo violinists Andrew Sords and Mari Sato and pianist Daniel Overly.

The composition of “Dark Tides” is an atmospheric and modern piece, said Borman.

“It maybe puts you in the space of loss and feelings of grief that we all experience over the past two years with the pandemic, and it comes from a place of looking for the next step and looking for the next steps and new beginnings – come out in a way that is beneficial and positive for everyone.

Borman said he has worked with Sords in the past, noting that the violinist “brings energy and personality to any ensemble and simply amplifies what individuals are capable of.”

Planning the concert during the pandemic posed many challenges, Borman said, including logistics and ways to keep musicians and attendees safe. Masks will be compulsory during the concert.

Borman looks forward to presenting performances of “high artistic merit” in Southern Indiana. The Derby City Chamber Orchestra concerts will present a relaxed atmosphere where people can dress as they wish and clap whenever they wish during the concerts, he said.

Later this year, Borman plans to offer a holiday concert, and in the spring, he plans to offer a concert with opera performances that tell “stories never told before”. The opera performance would probably be a cycle of small works of 30 minutes in which he hopes to create new pieces.