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ASO to feature American composers

For more than half his life, Lenny Young has made his way from Pittsburgh to play the oboe in the Altoona Symphony Orchestra. He will be the featured solo musician in the orchestra’s concert on Saturday that will honor master composers from the United States, including the late Leonard Bernstein.

“We haven’t done anything solely on American composers,” said ASO Maestra Teresa Cheung.

She noted that Bernstein, who died in 1990, would have been 100 this year and thought it was “a good time to celebrate American composers,” especially as the ASO prepares to celebrate its 90th anniversary next year.

The concert opens with “First Essay, Opus 12,” one of the popular pieces composed by Samuel Barber, who lived from 1910 to 1981. It debuted the same time as another popular composition of his, “Adagio for Strings,” which was the music in Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” and other movies.

“When you hear it, you’ll know it,” Cheung said. “It’s very interesting how America culture works. It’s important to go to the roots to know where we come from, to know the history. A lot of people know that piece of music, but say they don’t know anything about Barber. That is why I picked him.”

Another reason, she said, is that he was from Pennsylvania, having been born and raised in West Chester into a musical family.

“First Essay” was one of his earlier pieces and was a “foreshadowing of his melodic talent,” Cheung said. “The simplicity, the beauty of his music you can hear. It is quite a lyrical piece and a nice opening for this concert.”

Following that, Young will be performing on the oboe, along with the ASO’s chamber orchestra, on “Concerto for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra” by composer Lucas Foss.

Young said he first auditioned for the ASO in 1995, right after receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Carnegie Mellon University. He sat in second oboe chair for a year and then took over as principal when an opening occurred, a role he still has.

“He’s been with the orchestra longer than I have,” Cheung noted.

Now 46, Young started playing the oboe in sixth grade while growing up in Delaware because “I wanted to play something none of the other kids played,” he said.

He remained in the Pittsburgh area after college and is an artist lecturer at Carnegie Mellon, teaches music theory and other classes at the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) High School and is the choir director at Third Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.

He and his wife also operate their own chamber music group.

Young said the concerto that features him was written by Foss in 1948, during the five years he was the pianist for the Boston Symphony. Foss actually was born in Germany in 1922 before moving to the United States and attending the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia at the age of 15, “a total child prodigy,” said Young.

Foss, who died in 2009, wrote the piece in a “Neo-Classical” style with “singable melodies and nods to classical form,” thanks to its three movements, fast, slow and fast.

“The modern updates include more dissonance, updated harmony, greater use of the woodwinds and brass in the orchestra, and more complicated rhythms,” Young said. “I particularly like the middle movement, which is a set of variations on a Sicilian folk song that brings out lots of different textures while still having a beautiful melodic line.”

Cheung noted that Foss’ achievements included conducting and playing the piano for a number of premieres of Bernstein’s music.

“The premiere of what we do in the second half (of the concert), Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story,’ was conducted the first time by Lucas Foss himself,” she said. “There is that connection, two very good friends, who went to the same music school in Philadelphia. But, musically, they could not be more different.”

Foss, she said, was not from a musical family, but showed early talent. He also was “more adventurous, a little more contemporary” than Bernstein.

The ASO will play two pieces from Bernstein, “Candide Overture” and “Symphonic Dances from West Side Story,” the modern version of “Romeo and Juliet.”

Cheung said Bernstein wrote the music first and then he pulled out orchestral music and put together a melody from “Symphonic Dances.” It, too, was first conducted by Foss, she added.

“It’s hard to do a medley — these don’t have any kind of sequence,” Cheung said. “But here, you can almost feel the entire story unfold in front of you, the family conflict, the struggle, not a good ending at the end.”

The fourth composer to be honored is George Tsontakis, who, unlike most artists Cheung features, is alive, lives in New York and is scheduled to attend the concert that will feature his “Impetuous.” Tsontakis received two of classical music’s biggest prizes, the International Grawemeyer Award in 2005 and the 2007 Ives Living from the American Academy.

Cheung, who also lives in New York, said she met him in 2008 and he previously narrated at an ASO concert with his music.

On this trip to Altoona, he will just be listening, which may add extra pressure to performers.

“But it’s exciting at the same time, not just for me, but the whole orchestra,” she said.

Cheung said symphony lovers should not be intimidated if they only know Bernstein’s piece from “West Side Story.”

“A lot of people will not know a lot of the pieces in this program,” she said. “That’s OK. This is an opportunity to come in and hear something you’ve never heard before. It will be very entertaining.”

Mirror Life Writer Cherie Hicks is at 949-7030.

If you go

What: Altoona Symphony Orchestra’s “American Masters” concert

Where: Mishler Theatre

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Admission: $10-$32, plus fees

Tickets/More info: Mishler box office, www.MishlerTheatre.org or 944-9434

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