About Youth Symphony of DuPage
www. ysdp. org
We are the musicians of the Youth Symphony of DuPage Preparatory and Symphony Orchestras. Youth Symphony of DuPage is dedicated to bringing advanced ensemble training and performance opportunities to more than 200 talented young musicians from DuPage County and nearby towns.
Our Preparatory Orchestra members are primarily advanced grade-school and junior-high school age musicians. The Symphony Orchestra members are junior-high and high school instrumentalists. YSDP is a unique opportunity for us to tackle great music and achieve musical excellence.
Music Director and Conductor Meng-Kong Tham works with us to perform as a true orchestral team. The Preparatory Orchestra repertoire is drawn from the standard classical literature. The Symphony Orchestra tackles more advanced works, from the classics to modern works like "Star Wars" and "Carnival of the Animals," and even new pieces by area composers.
Youth Symphony of DuPage's Annual Solo Competition gives the members of both orchestras the opportunity to master concertos. The winners perform their concertos at our May concert.
Our concerts bring the drama and pleasure of fine music to people of all ages. Young people in our audience get to experience orchestral music first-hand - performed by their peers. YSDP's December and May admission-free concerts present the Preparatory and Symphony orchestras. Our March concert is our annual fund-raising event in which the YSDP Symphony Orchestra presents diverse and exciting works with a common theme or subject.
"The Challenge of Excellence"
Meng-Kong Tham is our Conductor and Music Director.
He was appointed in 1977.
Mr. Tham is a faculty member of DePaul University's School of Music. He received his musical education at the Normal University of Taiwan and Northwestern University. He has also been on the conducting staff of Chicago's Civic Orchestra, and has conducted the Grant Park, Elmhurst Symphony, and touring orchestras.
Mr. Tham was named DePaul's School of Music first Coordinator of World Music in 1998. His interest in and knowledge of the music of many cultures and periods is reflected in the repertoire learned and performed by Youth Symphony of DuPage's musicians. His love of teaching young musicians and his efforts to challenge us to achieve are clearly demonstrated by our musical teamwork, and the wonderful quality of our music is the result.
Youth Symphony of DuPage instrumentalists learn and master a repertoire that is unique among many young people's orchestras. It ranges from the classics to modern and new works, and is culturally and musically diverse.
Guest vocal and instrumental artists from the Chicago area, and even some of our alumni, perform with us when the opportunities arise.
Our language is the classical scores of Handel, Mozart and Bach. It speaks in the measured cadences of Vivaldi and Haydn.
Our music comes to life as quietly or stormily as the seasons do in "Jiangnan Four Seasons" by Fu-Tsai Jin. It dances to the exciting rhythms of Rimsky-Korsakov and "Duke" Ellington, and soars to the majesty and flair of Beethoven and Rossini.
Our concert audiences march triumphantly into Egypt to the strains of Verdi's "Aida." They sweep with us throughout the "Star Wars" galaxies of John Williams' score, across America's great plains to the music of "Dances With Wolves," and march through Russia to the strains of Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije."
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