While the future of the professional Springfield Symphony Orchestra remains in limbo, there is good news on classical music from the SSO organization.

The Springfield Youth Symphony Orchestras will perform their first concert of the season on Sunday, November 21 at 3 p.m. live from the Robyn Newhouse Hall at the Springfield Community Music School, free of charge. The concert is in memory of George A. Sergentanis and is made possible by a donation and support from Irene Sergentanis.

It can be seen at springfieldsymphony.org/event/ssyo-season-premiere-concert-live-stream/

The event will feature performances by the Springfield Youth Sinfonia, conducted by Marsha Hassett, and the Springfield Youth Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Lam. The cellist of the youth orchestra JiYu Moon, winner of the 2020 Concerto Competition, will be the soloist of the first movement of Haydn’s Concerto No.1 in C major for cello and orchestra. Jiyu was featured in the SSO’s “Home Grown” series in May, performing a sublime narrative of the Prelude to Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor BWV 1008 by JS Bach.

According to director Rocio Mora, the youth orchestras resumed rehearsals together on September 12. They are currently rehearsing at the Community Music School in Springfield, and Mora expressed his gratitude on behalf of the orchestras for the CMSS partnership.

Like the symphony itself, the Springfield Youth Orchestra was founded by Harold Alexander Leslie in 1944. Generations of local musicians are remembered by their own formative musical activities as members of the Youth Orchestras – in fact, the current principal trumpeter. from the orchestra, Thomas Bergeron. , began his musical career in the youth orchestra.

The current two ensembles are SSO sponsored merit-based orchestras for talented young musicians up to the age of 19 living in the Pioneer Valley and beyond. The youth orchestra is an introductory orchestra that develops ensemble skills, and the more advanced youth orchestra presents a standard symphonic repertoire.

Lam and Hassett are both very happy to be back for in-person rehearsals at Community Music School. Both noted that the pandemic had significantly reduced the number of players and made the instrumentation of both sets incomplete.

Hassett, who has led Sinfonia for 22 years, sees his current goal as “… making a fresh start and bringing the organization back to life.” “

Lam, who has led the youth orchestra for 13 years, is delighted to resume the work of “… teaching young musicians the tradition of classical music”. This includes exposing them to great compositions and their historical contexts, educating them in the different styles suitable for playing music by different composers from different periods, and perhaps most of all, encouraging them to listen, play and work together, and integrate the understanding they have gained with the experience of the ensemble to produce an informed and inspired performance.

Both conductors are eagerly awaiting a return to some sort of normal performance.

“My wish,” said Hassett, “is that our winter and final concerts be in a place where we can have a live audience.”

Lam added, “It’s wonderful to be back to our Sunday night rehearsals – to see young people with instruments in their hands, encouraging them to work hard and seeing the finished product, with all the imperfections that there may be, is really the reward part of what I do.

The Sunday program begins with the sinfonia, playing Beethoven’s Turkish March from the Ruins of Athens, op. 113, no. 4; Jesu by JS Bach, Joy of Man’s Desiring, arranged by David Stone; the Intermezzo and the Barcarolle of Hoffmann’s Tales of Offenbach, edited by Steven Rosenhaus; and the fiery and perpetual finale of Haydn’s Symphony No. 88.

The Springfield Youth Orchestra will follow with Verdi’s Luisa Miller Sinfonia the first movement of Haydn’s Cello Concerto, featuring soloist Jiyu Moon, and five of Dvorak’s masterful Slavic dances, Op. 46 (Nos. 1, 4, 6, 7 and 8).

Soloist of Haydn’s Concerto Jiyu Moon began playing the cello at the age of four. His current teacher is Ronald Lowry. 2021 is Jiyu’s fourth year as a member of the Youth Orchestra. She entered the youth orchestra in 2017 and joined the youth orchestra in 2019.

Jiyu attended Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School before the pandemic. During the pandemic, she spent a year in Seoul, Korea with her family and attended Yeouido College there for a year. Her family returned to Amherst this summer and she is currently in eighth grade at Amherst Regional Middle School.

Jiyu has studied JC Bach’s Cello Concerto in C minor and Lalo’s Cello Concerto in D minor, but this performance of the first movement of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major will be his first public concerto performance.

Jiyu said she chose the piece because “… not only is (the) Haydn (Concerto) a classic, but the piece is also light and powerful”. She loves the way the movement starts out loud and cheerful and comes to a head.

The stream link to the performance on November 21 at 3 p.m. will be available on the SSO website www.springfieldsymphony.org