DG Youth Orchestra
Dumfries and Galloway Youth Orchestra

Music at an Exhibition

Congratulations to members of the DGYO that took part in "Music at an Exhibition", on Saturday at Kirkcudbright Galleries.  It was a wonderful afternoon, with pieces selected to pay tribute to the work and life of John Faed.  The music included Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Espana by Chabrier and Holst's Jupiter. Before concluding with a good selection of Scottish ballads and reels a string quartet played Bonnie Gallowa, which was beautifully sung by Josephine Pallinder.
It was such a fun afternoon, with a super audience and terrific for the orchestra to have the opportunity to play in the new gallery.  Our thanks to the Gallery for your support.
A recording of the concert is available here.
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Solway Sinfonia Concert Free To Accompanied School Children

The Solway Sinfonia is to perform a varied programme at the Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries DG1 4TA on Sunday 24 November 2019 conducted by its new music director Hilario Flores-Coni.  The highlight of the music will be Brahms' monumental second symphony, but the orchestra will also be performing an overture by Borodin, Faure's "Pavanne" and a suite of four Argentinian tango movements arranged by Hilario.  Truly there should be something to please all musical tastes.

The orchestra hopes that you might be tempted to come to its concert, particularly as accompanied school children get in free!

Click on the poster to enlarge it.

Burns Society Concert In Gatehouse of Fleet

On 28th July 2019 a chamber group from the DGYO played at the Burn's Society concert in the Faed Gallery at the Mill on the Fleet in Gatehouse.  They played a variety of music, Scottish traditional,  classical and jazz,  to a packed audience who were thrilled by the entertainment.  There were duets from Vanessa Ho, Erin Findlay and Fraser Hannah who all played wonderfully.  Our thanks to them for volunteering to perform.

Although the main aim of DGYO is to rehearse and perform classical orchestral music as a full orchestra, invitations to players to perform in small groups provide the opportunity to play at different venues throughout Dumfries and Galloway.  More importantly they challenge and stretch young players musically in ways that playing in a full orchestra cannot.  We shall continue to look for opportunities for varied small groups of players to demonstrate their skills throughout the region.
 

DGYO Concert at Dalbeattie 16 June 2019

Members of the DGYO were very happy and proud after performing to the public for the first time as part of a concert given by the Solway Sinfonia in the Heughan Hall, Dalbeattie, on 16 June 2019. The concert was called ‘New Beginnings’ to reflect a new youth orchestra, a new venue, and a new conductor for the Solway Sinfonia.

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DGYO Logo Competition Awards

The DGYO is delighted to announce the winner of its logo competition. Bethany Platt from Thornhill was chosen as the winner in a process that involved the orchestra, Ken Smyth and Gyllian Dickson, with the final adjudication of the final five entries by Anne Ramsbottom, Curator of the Kirkcudbright Gallery and Dame Barbara Kelly.  Second prize was awarded to Edie Wright from Kirkcudbright Academy.
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The Music

If you aren’t yet a member of DGYO but you’re interested to know what music we’re currently rehearsing you can find it on the BBC website here BBC 10 Pieces. You can listen to the music being played and you can download the music for your instrument and follow along or even give it a go.

We've recently been fortunate to be given access to two libraries of orchestral music. We'll need to take some time to look through these to find music which is suitable for us to play, but then we'll be able to use the music we like to widen our repertoire. As you can see elsewhere on the website we have recently been given a very generous donation by the John Younger Trust of Gatehouse. We intend to use this money to buy orchestral music parts which we'll want to own to use again and again.