CSYO celebrates more than 50 years with first-ever reunion

Nancy Swan

May 15-16 festivities include Hidden Freedom Festival, reunion concert

Spring is a popular season to host class reunions, and while most people are eager to see who’s married, divorced, or has hair left, there’s one upcoming reunion that’ll enrich the entire community.

The Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra is hosting its first-ever reunion beginning Saturday, May 15, with the Hidden Freedom Festival at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 3200 Park Road, and concluding Sunday May 16 with a CSYO Spring Reunion Concert at the Central Piedmont Community College’s Halton Theater, 1206 Elizabeth Ave.

The centerpiece of the entire weekend is the original orchestral composition, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Ted Gellar-Goad. The composition is based on the famous slave narrative by Harriet Jacobs. In a recent phone interview, Gellar-Goad spoke of his inspiration for the piece while taking an African-American literature survey class at North Carolina State University. “I got to a specific section where she talks about this pair of sisters, one free, one enslaved, who were living in this one household nearby where Harriet Jacobs herself was enslaved,” he recalled. “As I was reading what she was saying in her description of the two paths the girls went down as they grew up, I just started hearing music in my head for how to set this piece to orchestra.”

The Saturday festival is free and open to the public, with face-painting, storytelling, games, music and the Symphony Guild of Charlotte Musical Petting Zoo. At 4 p.m., guests will enjoy a program that relays the stories and struggles of freedom fighters.

The CSYO first was formed in 1958 by Frank West of Davidson College and since has grown into a remarkable endeavor of the Charlotte Symphony. The CSYO and the Junior Youth Orchestra, led by Charlotte Symphony violinist Ernest Pereira, provide young musicians with instruction and resources to develop their talent. Both youth orchestras have weekly rehearsals and are coached by Charlotte Symphony musicians.

One of the most exciting aspects of this event is the partnership between the CSYO and CONNECTIONS Underground Railroad Project. CONNECTIONS is a diverse group of 45 seventh- through 10th-graders who learn ­team-building and leadership skills through stories of the past. These students, along with Gellar-Goad and University of North Carolina at Charlotte professors ­Jeffrey Leak and Janaka Bowman Lewis, will enlighten the crowd with a program called “Toward a Life of Liberty: Chronicling the Paths from Slavery to Freedom” that details the stories of freedom fighters and the hardships of slavery.

The Charlotte Symphony added several intriguing dimensions to this program by including the UNCC professors, who teach courses in African-American studies. Bowman Lewis currently is teaching a course entitled “Early African American Writers,” which focuses on 18th- and 19th-century female authors with North Carolina connections. One of the authors included in the course is Harriet Jacobs, a freed slave and freedom fighter from Edenton, N.C., who in 1861 wrote “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” It’s this work that inspired composer Gellar-Goad to score his magnificent orchestra piece, which is accompanied by a narrative taken verbatim from the book.

“The Charlotte Symphony staff invited faculty who specialize in African-American literature to comment on “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” in a panel that will precede the CYSO reunion festival,” said Bowman Lewis. “And when I found out that student work was welcomed, I initiated a series of student projects in my course. They are creating visual images from quotes and themes in the text, which adds another dimension of engagement and a different way to make the narrative relevant.”

Geller-Goad is a former CSYO student and living proof of the program’s achievement in fostering the talents of young musicians. He’s a Ph.D. candidate in classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He composes Western art (classical) music, and his compositions have been performed at Florida State University, North Carolina State University, Winthrop University, the Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra, the Northwest School of the Arts and the Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra. In the summer of 2000, he attended the prestigious Tanglewood music festival for a pre-college program in composition. Geller-Goad arranged a partnership with the North Carolina State University honors program to work on the piece as a research/­creative project, which turned into vibrant ­composition.

The piece will be performed at the concert on Sunday and will be narrated by former CSYO violinist Jessica ­McJunkins. The concert also will include performances by the Junior Division Grand Prize Winners of the Young Artists Competition, Juni Halston Lim and Maura Shawn Scanlin, and a stirring side-by-side performance of Saint-Saens’ “Danse ­Bacchanale” by current and former CSYO students.