Teach Your Children

Community Youth String Orchestra

The BSO Community Youth Strings Orchestra -- Growing our Own

CYSO

The littlest violinists in the Community Youth Strings Orchestra look up to an increasingly older set of role models these days, now that the strings program is heading into its sixth year.

The strings program began in 2007 when the BSO and Putnam County Schools developed the first coordinated effort to teach children to play violin in a generation. Now, children who have participated in the after-school strings program through the Putnam County Schools LEAPS program, as well as those taking private lessons, can participate in the BSO's Community Youth String Orchestra, directed by BSO violist Idalynn Besser.

The program seeks to build the foundation necessary to develop a full-fledged youth orchestra. While today’s students are learning to play violin and cello, they’re also learning to read music – and, most importantly, they’re learning how to work with each other – to pay attention to the role each musician plays in an orchestral setting.

The CYSO, which is divided into a fourth-grade section and one for older students, some of whom benefit from private lessons, and some who have been members of the group since its inception.

Managed and funded by the BSO with the assistance of a grant from The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the CYSO meets at 6 p.m. on Mondays at First Presbyterian Church on 20 North Dixie Avenue in downtown Cookeville.

To learn how to sign your child up with the CYSO, call 931-525-2633 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Education Concerts

Playing Beautiful Music for Youngsters

Peter and the Wolf

Among the Bryan Symphony Orchestra's educational priorities are its annual concerts for area 4th graders.

Every year, the symphony gives several full performances in TTU's concert hall, Wattenbarger Auditorium, for the approximately 800 4th-graders who attend Putnam County's nine elementary schools. The BSO also provides educational material -- typically on the concert's featured composers and instruments -- to the schools' music teachers.

These education concerts are a long-standing tradition with the symphony; its first auxiliary group, the Symphony Guild, made the concerts its highest fund-raising priority. The guild, which has since reorganized into the Bryan Symphony Orchestra Association, won the League of American Orchestra's Sally Parker Award in 1995 for its success in bringing classical music to public schools.

In the 2011-2012 season, the BSO is performing three education concerts on Monday, Nov. 14, for not only the 4th graders of Putnam County, but a group of 500 children from Warren County.

 

Scholarships & Awards

Encouraging Student Musicians

2011 Derryberry Competition winner Hannah ShoopmanThe highest honor a student musician at Tennessee Tech University can receive is winning the annual Joan Derryberry Memorial Concerto Competition.

Along with a prize comes an opportunity for the winner to perform a solo with the Bryan Symphony – a rare opportunity for college students anywhere in the country.

The fact that the Bryan Symphony is in residence at the university also provides a rare opportunity for baccalaureate music students. Every season, select students from each teaching studio are invited to perform alongside their professors and professionals from orchestras in three states. By the time they graduate, these especially gifted musicians have a leg up on their peers from other universities, many of whom have not been so fortunate.

A rigorous day-long process, the Derryberry Competition requires students to play their choice of concerto on their major instrument, and the contest is judged by independent jurors. The concerto chosen by the winning student is automatically added to the program of one of the Bryan Symphony’s subscription concerts.

The BSO also administers the Dr. Jerry Bart Ayers Memorial Scholarship for outstanding music students. The award was made in honor of Dr. Jerry Bart Ayers, a long-time faculty member and administrator at TTU whose advocacy of artistic activities included serving on the Bryan Symphony Board of Directors.

For Music Teachers

Learn More

For music teachers whose students attend Bryan Symphony performances, there are ample educational experiences available by learning more about our concert programs. Here are selections from our upcoming season with informative links to composers, their music and the guest soloists who will appear on our stage:

• Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011: Sibelius Symphony no. 1, as well as works by Frederick Delius and our namesake, Charles Faulkner Bryan. Visit the Tennessee Tech University Archives for more information about Bryan.

• Sunday, November 13, 2011: Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony, and Weber’s Clarinet Concerto no. 1 with Jose Franch-Ballester. On Sunday, November 14, the orchestra will perform its annual education concerts for area schoolchildren.

• Sunday, February 19, 2012: Rossini’s Overture to The Turk in Italy and Mozart’s “Turkish” violin concerto with Noe Inui. The orchestra will also perform “Domes” by Turkish-American Kamran Ince, director of composition at the University of Memphis.

• Sunday, March 18, 2012: Schubert’s exquisite “Unfinished” Symphony, a solo by the winner of the Joan Derryberry Memorial Concerto Competition, and “Elegy” by centenarian Elliott Carter, two-time winner of a Pulitzer Prize.

• Sunday, April 22, 2012: Beethoven’s 8th Symphony – a special link to our upcoming 50th anniversary season – as well as selections from Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder and Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” with soprano Sabrina Laney Warren.

Learn more about this season's composers and the compositions our musicians will be performing through these web sites:

 

Audience Favorites

Survey Says....

To give the audience another way to participate in symphony performances, volunteer and supporter Diane Glasgow asks audience members of every BSO performance what their favorite musical instruments are -- and she polls them on their favorite composers, too. Here are the results from recent selected concerts:

February 2010 Favorite Composer

  • Dvorak: 20
  • Debussy: 16
  • Ives: 10
  • Sousa: 7

March 2010 Favorite Composer

  • Rodrigo: 32
  • Respighi: 12
  • Satie: 6
  • Freund: 4

April 2010 Favorite Composer

  • Shostakovich: 20
  • Prokofiev: 20

September 2010 Favorite Composer

  • Henry Mancini: 16
  • John Philip Sousa: 7
  • Leroy Anderson: 3
  • Duke Ellington: 2
  • Key: 1
  • Copland: 1
  • Bizet: 1
  • Nicolai: 1

November 2010 Favorite Composer

  • Prokofiev: 17
  • Beethoven: 17

February 2011 Favorite Composer

  • Vaughan Williams: 9
  • Stravinsky: 3
  • Mozart: 2
  • Ibert: 1

March 2011 Favorite Composer

  • Elgar: 21
  • Stravinsky: 3
  • Coates: 15
  • Haydn: 7

April 2011 Favorite Composition

  • Chichester Psalms: 23
  • Make Our Garden Grow: 17
  • Candide Overture: 15

October 2011 Favorite Composer

  • Bryan: 30
  • Sibelius: 18
  • Strauss: 9
  • Delius: 4

November 2011 Favorite Composer

  • Tchaikovsky: 13
  • Fagin: 14
  • Weber: 5