Outstanding teen musicians perform in Spokane Youth Symphony's annual Concerto Competition

click to enlarge Outstanding teen musicians perform in Spokane Youth Symphony's annual Concerto Competition
Courtesy photo
The Spokane Youth Symphony is comprised of some of the region's best young musicians.

In a large room at St. John's Cathedral, Spokane Youth Symphony Artistic Director Philip Baldwin is leading his orchestra's teenage musicians through the finale of Carl Maria von Weber's Hungarian Rondo. Baldwin pauses and asks the violins to revisit a measure or two, stressing that he wants to hear a distinct "YUM-pum-pum-pum."

Two tries later, they've nailed it, and the rehearsal resumes. Out in front of the group stands the soloist, a bassoon player named Jacob Campbell. With the orchestra now providing a firm musical foothold, he starts sprinting through a fleet-footed sequence of sixteenth-note triplets. Which, in layman's terms, means playing at breakneck speed.

Whereas soloists in the classical world are typically — though by no means always — guest artists who are brought in like specialists for hire, Campbell is a Mount Spokane High School junior drawn straight from this very orchestra. And when the Spokane Youth Symphony holds its spring concert on March 19, he'll experience all the pressure and prestige of performing this challenging piece that was written for professionals to showcase his instrument.

Every year, as part of the organization's Concerto Competition, youth symphony members audition for a coveted spot that briefly singles them out from their peers. From among the 20 highly capable musicians who vied for the opportunity this year, Campbell was selected along with violinist Amanda Nguyen and trombonist William Strauch.

"I had the confidence this year to audition for the Concerto Competition for the first time," Campbell says. "In prior [years], I was scared of the pressure it would have on me, being in front of such a big orchestra and then hundreds of people at The Fox. But there will always be that pressure, I think, regardless of whether you're playing a solo or not. So I learned to embrace that, and here we are now.''

He describes the Hungarian Rondo as a cornerstone of the bassoon repertoire as well as "the first snippet of true bassoon literature'' that he was exposed to. It was written during the Romantic era and is meant to be evocative, starting with the "sweet and mellow'' Andante, also by Weber, with which it's often paired.

"Weber plays with the character of the bassoon — sad, angry, fierce, brilliant, affectionate," he says. "A lot of times, the bassoon is characterized as the joker in the orchestra, and the Hungarian Rondo is a perfect representation of that. It's playful and shows off the whole range of the bassoon, going down to low C all the way back up the third octave altissimo C. It's a very fun piece to play."

In addition to playing with local jazz outfits like the MasterClass Big Band, Campbell has ambitions to study music. He's eyeing the Juilliard School, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music.

Strauch, a senior at Mead High School, is already on a trajectory to study music at the university level. Come next year he'll be attending Whitworth, where his father, also a trombonist, teaches and directs the Wind Symphony.

Before he was admitted into the Spokane Youth Symphony last year, Strauch had been "pretty jazz-focused" when it came to playing in larger groups. But things changed after he had a positive experience at the Washington Music Educators Association's All-State competition, and he started thinking about following his eldest sister's footsteps into the Spokane Youth Symphony.

"Coming from band and wind ensemble, the culture's very different from orchestra. So I was worried that coming into Youth Symphony might be a fish-out-of-water experience," he says.

Those preconceptions quickly vanished when he found a welcoming social group and a new appreciation for his instrument.

"It's really cool getting to know a lot of people from different schools. I just wish more people could be exposed to this experience, because it's helped me a lot in my playing," Strauch says.

His solo performance is of the first movement of Danish composer Launy Grøndahl's Trombone Concerto.

"It has a wide range of emotions. Specifically in this first movement, the entrance is very bold, but then it shifts into a more sentimental mood," he says.

"I always like to think of it as a love story. The beginning is your expression of love, and as you get deeper, at some points there's almost anger and frustration. Then, as it builds, there's a longing. And then toward the end, the statement from the beginning is repeated and just really ties it together. I think it's a beautiful piece, and I've enjoyed working on it."

Nguyen is the youngest of the three soloists but has been playing her instrument the longest. The Lewis and Clark High School sophomore began violin lessons at age 4, although she admits that she picked up the instrument even earlier — and promptly smashed it against the wall. At 6, she took up piano as well.

Like many Spokane Youth Symphony musicians, Nguyen rose through its ranks, starting in the Sinfonietta, then moving up to the Philharmonic and finally on to the Youth Symphony proper.

The first movement of Polish violinist and composer Henryk Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22 is her solo piece. It has special meaning to her because she recalls being dazzled as she watched Joey Pomeroy, a 2017 Concerto Competition winner, perform the same work. When Nguyen didn't land a soloist spot with a piece by Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns last year, she sought out the Wieniawski and re-auditioned this year after months of practicing it.

"It's just a romantic, passionate piece. It's so much fun to play. And it's also, I suppose, very showy," she laughs.

Yet, while she values and aims to deliver the pyrotechnics that the movement calls for, Nguyen sees the performance as a shared experience rather than one that simply spotlights the soloist.

"I have a couple friends in the Philharmonic, and they ask me, 'Amanda, do you feel nervous when you go to rehearsal and you have to play in front of all those people in the Spokane Youth Symphony?' And I say, 'No, I've basically grown up with them since the Sinfonietta. Playing with them is like playing with friends.'" ♦

Spokane Youth Symphony Presents: Triumph • Sun, March 19 at 4 pm • $15-$19 • The Fox Theater • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • spokaneyouthsymphony.org • 509-624-1200

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E.J. Iannelli

E.J. Iannelli has been a contributing writer for the Inlander since 2010. In that time, he's had the opportunity to cover a wide range of topics for the paper (among them steamboating, derelict buildings and creative resiliency during COVID), typically with an emphasis on arts and culture. He also contributes...