Paul Smith News

Music teacher Dimitri Kauriga, of Southampton, PA who taught more than 30 years at Philadelphia High School for Girls, had many supporters in the audience when he was named as the grand prize winner in the Fourth Annual Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) Ovation Award in a surprise presentation.

The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season was one to be applauded. After such an exciting year of music education and performances, the talented musicians will perform their final concert of the season on Sunday, June 4 at 3 p.m. in Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Friendship and puberty, past and present, angst and passion. What could be better fuel for a rock musical?

The talented young musicians of Tune Up Philly (TUP), The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO)'s community engagement program ensemble, will perform at Temple Performing Arts Center (TPAC) on Saturday May 27, 2017 presenting its 7th Annual Festival Concert at 1 p.m. This event is free and will be held at TPAC located at 1837 North Broad Street, Philadelphia.

It will be an exciting afternoon for the gifted young musicians of Philadelphia Young Musicians Orchestra (PYMO), the beginning to intermediate-level full symphonic orchestra, who will present their Inaugural Festival Concert on Saturday May 27, 2017 at 4 p.m.

Arts Brookfield's annual summer music festival, the Lowdown Hudson Music Fest, returns to the heart of downtown New York for its seventh summer on July 18 and 19.

The talented members of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra's Bravo Brass ensemble will hold their 14th Annual Festival Concert on Saturday, May 13, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. The all-brass ensemble consists of promising high school and college-aged instrumentalists.  The performance will take place at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 1625 Locust Street in Philadelphia, PA and will feature the music of Bizet, Gershwin, and Wagner.

Philadelphia Young Artists Orchestra (PYAO) members, ages 12 to 18, will present its 22nd Annual Festival Concert on Sunday, May 21, 2017 at 3 p.m. in the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia. Conducted by Maestra Rosalind Erwin, the musical program will include Lee Hoiby's Overture to a Farce; Claude Debussy's Nuages et Fêtes from Noctunes; and George Gershwin's An American in Paris. The concert will feature the Young Artists Solo Competition winner -- cellist, Danny Bishop, who will perform Camille Saint-Saëns Concerto for Violoncello in A minor.

Two Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization musicians have been selected for the three-week summer program known as NYO2, an extension of Carnegie Hall's National Youth Orchestra (NYO) of the USA.

The nationally acclaimed Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization is holding auditions for the 2017-2018 concert season that will recruit student musicians for five of its program ensembles. They will be held on various dates between May 11 and June 16, 2017.

Philadelphia Youth Orchestra's PRYSM (Philadelphia Region Youth String Music) and PRYSM-YA (PRYSM Young Artists) ensembles will showcase their talents at the 10th Annual PRYSM Festival Concert on Saturday, May 13, 2017, at 3:00 p.m. It will be held in Centennial Hall at the Haverford School, located at 750 Lancaster Avenue in Haverford, PA.

Martha Lorin will present a salute to the great Ella Fitzgerald next Friday, April 28th at 7-9pm at Cafe Noctambulo @ Pangea, 178 2nd Ave (btw 11th & 12th St) NY, NY. Music Charge: $20.00. Drink/Food min: $20.00.

Magicians have always found a home on stage, whether it was during vaudeville's heyday or on Broadway, and THE ILLUSIONISTS is proof that this association is still going strong (of course, the art of magic goes back many centuries, long before either existed). I have to confess that I've never actually seen any magician perform live. Most of my experience has been limited to watching various acts perform on television over the years. But, when you watch them on TV the more skeptical viewer is always aware that even though a particular stunt may seem phenomenal, there's that sense that maybe this was edited or achieved through camera trickery. That's not necessarily a fair assumption, but it's one I think a lot of people share. After having witnessed THE ILLUSIONISTS in person I find myself at a loss to explain how most of their illusions were created. And that's what makes this show so amazing. Their recent performance at the Fox Theatre was a truly wondrous and amusing experience that had me pondering over and over afterwards: "Just how did they do that?"

Each summer, the country's most gifted young musicians are chosen by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute to form the National Youth Orchestra of the United States (NYO-USA) of America. This year, seven Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) students have been selected to participate in the prestigious 2017 NYO-USA. The PYO students who have been chosen from PA are: Fiyi Adebekun, violin, of Lansdale, Allyson Cohen, violin, of Narberth, Isabella Egawa, violin, of Bala Cynwyd, Johnny May, violin, of Penn Valley and Joy Zhao, cello, of Chalfont. The student from DE is Conor McAvinue, violin, of Wilmington, and the student from NJ is Daniel Kim, clarinet, of Skillman.

Annette Warren will make a long-awaited return to New York at the age of 94, with a special one-night-only engagement at Feinstein's/54 Below on Thursday, March 30 at 7:00 PM. 'I Ain't Done Yet' traces her illustrious 70-year career in songs and reminiscences from her beginning in Cleveland, through her successes in New York, London and Los Angeles. Warren will be joined on stage by Grammy and two-time Emmy winner John McDaniel at piano; and Warren's protege, rising opera star Aaron Blake, who makes his Metropolitan Opera debut earlier that week in La Traviata.

Nolan Wenik of Willow Grove, a gifted bassoonist from the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO), will receive the 2017 Leitzinger Bassoon Competition Education Prize. Nolan won high praise from the judges during the competition with his performance, earning a full scholarship to the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Returning to the beautiful St. Mark's Church in Center City Philadelphia, the talented members of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra's Bravo Brass ensemble will present a concert titled “Ye Olde Brass” on Today, March 4 at 7:30 p.m. The concert features music of English Elizabethan composers William Byrd, John Bull, Giles Farnaby, Orlando Gibbons, and others. St. Mark's is located at 1625 Locust St, Philadelphia, PA.

Annette Warren, the "secret" singing voice of Ava Gardner and Lucille Ball in such films as the MGM classic "Show Boat," and a nightclub, TV and recording star whose career spans the past 70 years, will return to the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood on Thursday, March 16, with a special performance of her new one-woman show, "I Ain't Done Yet".

Annette Warren, the "secret" singing voice of Ava Gardner and Lucille Ball in such films as the MGM classic "Show Boat," and a nightclub, TV and recording star whose career spans the past 70 years, will make a long-awaited return to New York at the age of 94, with a special performance of her new one-woman show, "I Ain't Done Yet" at Feinstein's/54 Below on Thursday, March 30 at 7:00 PM.

With the forthcoming departure of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, it might seem like the circus world could be fading...but not if shows like Circus 1903 stick around.