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.

Schools across Dumfries and Galloway have taken part in a competition to create a logo for the orchestra. Nearly 300 entries were received. Our thanks go to all who entered the competition and sent us such interesting, artistic suggestions. The winner, Bethany Platt from Thornhill, has received a cheque for £50 donated by the Rotary Club of Dumfries Devorgilla and her design will be developed for use across all the orchestra's marketing and promotional material. You can see all of the entries here.

On Sunday 29 September in Gatehouse Parish Church Gatehouse Music Society is promoting a concert, in aid of DGYO, given by the Glasgow based ensemble Sirocco Winds. You can find them on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/pg/SiroccoWinds.

We are delighted to announce that the members of the ensemble are happy to do a masterclass for youth orchestra players in the afternoon before the concert, so anyone from the orchestra who would like to join in should let us know.

We are also delighted that Gatehouse Music Society have been fortunate to receive support from Enterprise Music Scotland to pay for some of the concert costs. This means that Gatehouse Music Society will be able to donate more of the proceeds of the concert to the DGYO.  Our thanks to GMS and EMS.

We’ll have more sessions in October and November - dates and venues to be announced so watch this space.

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Sunday 1 September 2019

For the third year the Solway Sinfonia will be running a young musicians day when young instrumental players of Grade 3 and above are invited to come to play with the adult orchestra under the direction of its new conductor Hilario Flores-Coni.  The event will take place on Sunday 1 September 2019.  Further details can be found on the Application Form which can be downloaded here.

We've been very fortunate to have been given an extremely generous donation by the John Younger Trust, a local family trust based in Gatehouse of Fleet.  Our grateful thanks to the trustees.  The money they have given us will enable us to start our own music library.

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.