YMF Debut Orchestra to Perform at LACMA

The Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) Debut Orchestra performs in its annual appearance on Sundays Live chamber music series at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art (LACMA). The program will feature a recent work, titled Try, by eminent Los Angeles-based composer Andrew Norman, and conclude with Schumann's triumphant Symphony No. 2. Recently appointed YMF Music Director Yuga Cohler will conduct the program, and notes:

"Try, a breakout piece for the Los Angeles-based Andrew Norman, is about the relationship between trying and success. For him, the compositional process involves a certain amount of failure and frustration before it can come to fruition. He writes of the piece: 'it's messy, and fragmented, and it certainly doesn't get things right on the first try. It does things over and over, trying them out in as many different ways as it can... And, at long last, after ten minutes of increasingly frantic trying... it finally gets it right.'

Andrew's honesty about the necessity of trying before succeeding resonated with me, and reminded me of Schumann's symphonies. His first attempt at writing one was so frustrating that it took him ten years to complete, and his second symphony - arguably his most profound - was written in a time of deep despair for the composer. The Second Symphonyis a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit and the value of trying in the face of failure and adversity.

The process of improvement that the act of trying presupposes is one that is critical to music. Great performances, much like great compositions, come about only after grueling and sometimes disheartening attempts at refinement. Trying is the foundation of the fine arts not just because it begets better results, but because it transforms the artist himself.

This opening concert is thus emblematic of the approach I have taken with my first season with the YMF Debut Orchestra. In the quest for finding a place for classical music in the 21st century, we will undoubtedly face some hiccups - but there is no choice: we must try."

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