GLOBAL HARMONY an evening of music featuring YOSA and ESSO Orchestras.

Get ready for an unforgettable evening of music! Global Harmony brings the spotlight to YOSA – the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio. They will be joined by ESSO, the Edinburgh Secondary Schools Orchestra, with a beautiful organ interlude performed by John Kitchen at Usher Hall.

The event is FREE with donations in favour of ECHC Edinburgh Children's Hosptial Charity, which provides vital support to seriously ill children and their families during potentially life‑changing hospital experiences. .

Usher Hall is an extraordinary blend of historical and contemporary, traditional and modern building The venue can hold approximately 2,200 people in its recently restored auditorium, which is well loved by performers due to its acoustics.

Program:

Holst (orch. Jacob)—March from A Moorside Suite

Vaughan Williams—Prelude to 49th Parallel

Coleridge-Taylor (arr. Peters)—Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

Arnold—Scottish Dance No. 1

Gade—Echoes of Ossian

Copland—Three Dance Episodes from Rodeo

Shostakovich - Festive Overture

Expect uplifting music, incredible young talent, and an atmosphere full of energy and inspiration plus the beautiful bright , rich , warm and sweet sound of the organ played by the best organist in town. It’s the perfect chance to experience great performances all in one place. Don’t miss this exceptional night! Your donations help to speed up recovery, take away fear, and provide reassurance, distraction and fun every step of the way.

Youth Orchestra of San Antonio (YOSA) changes kids’ lives through music, with more than 600 young musicians working together in 11 orchestras. The touring orchestra features the best young musicians from south Texas on the orchestra’s 15th major concert tour. A resident company of San Antonio’s Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, YOSA has been recognized with critical acclaim and an ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. Frequent collaborations with internationally renowned soloists and composers have included appearances by Branford Marsalis (alto saxophone), Richard Stoltzman (clarinet), and Edgar Meyer (double bass), among many others. Previous concert tours have included visits to Australia, Austria, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, and Wales.

Hailed by the San Antonio Current as “consistently brilliant and impossibly cool,” conductor Troy Peters has been Music Director of Youth Orchestras of San Antonio (YOSA) since 2009. Formerly Resident Conductor of the San Antonio Symphony and Music Director of the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, Peters has guest conducted many orchestras, including the Oregon Symphony, San Antonio Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Round Rock Symphony. Musical America featured him in their 2016 special issue, The MA30 Professionals of the Year: The Innovators. He was previously Music Director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra and conducted college orchestras at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas State University, and Middlebury College. He has also gained international attention for his orchestral collaborations with rock musicians, including Blind Pilot, Jon Anderson (of the band Yes), and Trey Anastasio (of the band Phish), with whom he recorded two albums on Elektra Records. Awarded a Vermont Arts Council Citation of Merit in 2009, he has been honored with eight ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music and has conducted more than three-dozen world premieres. Also active as a composer, Peters holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of Pennsylvania, where his primary compositional mentors were Ned Rorem and George Crumb. Born in 1969 in Greenock, Scotland (of American parents), Peters grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Edinburgh Secondary Schools' Orchestra (ESSO) was formed in 1964, conducted by Eric Roberts, as the City of Edinburgh Council Instrumental Music Service's senior symphony orchestra.Early highlights included playing Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals at Edinburgh Zoo, in 1966, and later that year performing for HM The Queen Mother. In 1970, Dr. Colin O'Riordan took over as conductor of the orchestra and held this position until 2001, when Dr. Alasdair Mitchell took the reins of the orchestra. At this time, ESSO regularly performed in the Festival of Youth Orchestras in Edinburgh and Glasgow as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.

When Dr. Mitchell retired in 2012, Julian Appleyard moved from coaching the oboe section to conducting the orchestra and the orchestra continues to thrive under Julian's musical leadership. In 2015, ESSO performed on the Ross Bandstand, in Princes Street Gardens, as part of the closing event of the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival. Since 2023, they have been delighted to return to regular performances at the Usher Hall, with their two annual performances as part of the City of Edinburgh Council Instrumental Music Service's Childline and Spring concert events.

Born in Leeds, Julian moved to Scotland in 1993 to study oboe and cor anglais with Stephen West and Stephane Rancourt at the RSAMD (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), where he gained a B.A.(Hons) and an M.Mus.(Performance).

A prize-winner at the RSAMD, he has given solo recitals as part of the Leeds International Concert Season, Carlisle Cathedral Lunchtime Series, the University of St. Andrews and St. Margaret’s Church, Glasgow. He has performed concertos in St Andrews and Edinburgh, and as a chamber musician has played at St. Martin in the Fields and the Halifax Chamber Music Festival. Julian can be heard improvising on several albums by Greg Foat and Andrew Wasylyk.

Julian works as an oboe teacher and orchestral coach at the RCS Junior Department. He is oboe tutor at the City of Edinburgh Music School and works as a woodwind instructor for Edinburgh City Council.

Julian is the conductor of both “Edinburgh Secondary Schools’ Orchestra” and the “Colinton Amateur Orchestral Society”. He works as an orchestral coach with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, the Universities of Scotland Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish Schools’ Orchestral Trust.

John Philip Kitchen MBE is a Scottish organist,harpsichordist, conductor, early music scholar, and music educator based in Edinburgh. John Kitchen is Director of Music at Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, and Edinburgh City Organist with performing and curatorial duties at the Usher Hall. He is also Edinburgh University Organist and is much involved with the Collections of Early Keyboard Instruments at St Cecilia's Hall, most of which he has recorded. He gives many solo recitals both in the UK and further afield, and also plays regularly with several ensembles, covering a wide range of musical styles. In addition, he is much in demand as a continuo player, accompanist, tutor, lecturer, writer, adjudicator, reviewer and recording artist. He has recorded extensively for Delphian Records, the Edinburgh-based label, including three CDs recorded on the 1914 Norman and Beard organ here in the Usher Hall.

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