A symphony of young talent

Outstanding young musicians find inspiration, camaraderie and
experience by playing in the American Youth Symphony orchestra, a
group with arguably the best talent performing locally next to the
Los Angeles Philharmonic. The group will be putting on a free
performance Sunday night at Royce Hall.

“We’re really lucky to have AYS in Los Angeles,
because in other major cities, there is not that kind of
opportunity,” said principal percussionist Kevin Shah.
“It’s really competitive, and some people don’t
get the experience of being in an orchestra like this.”

Being admitted to AYS is tough, with less than 50 students
between the ages of 15 and 25 selected per year out of a pool of
several thousand applicants from throughout the United States. Most
of these musicians, like Shah, are serious about continuing a
career as a professional orchestral musician.

“I don’t know what else I could ask for in a
profession,” said Shah, a fifth-year music student at UCLA
who specializes in performance and percussion. “I don’t
feel like I’m going to work. I would play with them if I
weren’t getting paid, and at the same time you’re
getting paid. You’re like, “˜Wow, this is
great.'”

Shah has been playing in the group for three years, and notes
that the experience not only gives him a feel for what it would be
like to play in a real orchestra, it has inspired him to be a
better player. He said that he tries to practice between three and
six hours a day.

A major source of inspiration for the players is director
Alexander Treger, a violinist and concertmaster for the L.A.
Philharmonic. He is also a native of Russia, like the composer
whose works the AYS will be performing this weekend.

“Treger is particularly gifted at being able to perform
Russian music like (Dmitri) Shostakovich,” said 22-year-old
violinist and recent UCLA graduate Adam Mendelsohn.

Shoshtakovich, whose sixth symphony will be the focus of
Sunday’s performance, wrote during the 1930s when the Stalin
regime restricted artists’ range of expression. Shostakovich
found clever ways to convey his disgust with the oppression by
subtly inserting negative, often satirical, sentiments within his
compositions.

“Shostakovich was asked to write glory to the regime, but
in his music you can hear a personal, grotesque feeling about
it,” said Treger.

Specifically, the symphony’s first movement is slow,
dissonant and tragic, reflecting the composer’s unhappiness
with his country’s political environment. The second and
third movements are quick, happy and almost trivial.

“This concert is going to be great because (Treger) feels
so close, personally, to the composers and to the music,”
said Mendelsohn. “It’s about communist Russia, (and) he
has experienced it himself. He can relate to the composers, so he
can bring out musical effects more accurately.”

The orchestra also plans to perform Peter Tchaikovsky’s
well-known “Variations on a Rococo Theme” and for
contrast, Maurice Ravel’s “Ma Mere l’Oye,”
a playful suite from his children’s ballet.