 |
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the world of South Shore Orchestra. SSO is a community based orches-
tra where membership is by audition or invitation. We are a unique mixture of professional and
community musicians whose primary goal is to “orchestrate a musical community” through our
season concerts and musical partnerships across the south shore. As an orchestra, our
flexible instrumentation allows SSO to showcase anywhere from one musician to a 60 piece
orchestra in a single performance.
Tonight we begin the celebration of our 5th season as South Shore Orchestra. The past
five years of “orchestrating a musical community” have certainly been full of adventure in many
respects, and I am extremely proud of all that we have been able to accomplish in our beginning
years. Some highlights of our first five years include:
Community and Educational Outreach
In the past 3 years, we have raised over $10,000 for Prevent Child Abuse Porter County.
- Creating a substantial $2,500 performance scholarship for a graduating high school senior
in Lake or Porter County.
- Making Memories: A free arts/literacy library class for families in partnership with South
Shore Arts.
- Extensive collaborative partnerships with community businesses and organizations.
- Creation of South Shore Youth Orchestras, which allow children the opportunity to perform
in three separate youth orchestras from beginning to advanced levels.
Artistic Accomplishments
- In five years we have created and nurtured our orchestra from a 15 piece ensemble on our
very first concert to a 60 piece symphony orchestra.
- Free outdoor summer chamber music concerts and summer orchestra concert.
- Numerous state, national, and world premieres in both musical theatre and symphonic lit-
erature.
- Created over a dozen new paintings in partnership with local artists for our Fusion of Music
and Art concerts.
- Invitation to perform in China on a 10 day / 7 concert New Year’s tour.
Additionally this season, we welcome Egyptian composer Halim El Dabh and American com-
poser Michael Schelle as our composers-in-residence throughout the 2009 season. We also wel-
come violinist Gregory Maytan and pianist Miho Sasaki who will be performing with us
throughout the season as our artists-in-residence. Finally, we are very excited about our new
partnership with the Confucius Institute of Valparaiso University and continuing partnership
with Ivy Tech College.
In conclusion, I want to thank you for your support of South Shore Orchestra by at-
tending our concerts. Now sit back, relax and enjoy as OUR adventure continues…..
Musically Yours,
Troy Webdell
Music Director & Conductor
|
