The second performance of the NOYS will be on Tuesday, February 9, at 7pm. The performance will be held in the Port Angeles High School auditorium. The Youth Orchestra should be ready to warm up at 6:30. The Honor and Jr. Youth Orchestras should be on stage at 6:15 ready to warm up.

Rehearsals on 8 February will be from 4pm to 4:45 and from 5pm to 5:45.

Last month eight members of the NOYS were invited to perform on the COHO. It all started when the PASO asked us if we could provide a small group of musicians to perform for an event in the symphony headquarters. As a result of this performance they were asked to perform sometime on board the Victoria ferry. These eight musicians worked out all the music, transportation and schedule, and on Friday, 18 December they met the ferry and performed on both runs. You may have seen the letter to the editor in the Daily News about this trip. These musicians did such a fine job they have a standing invitation to return any time they wish.

There�s a lot to musicianship. To begin with it�s about knowing your instrument and how to play it, but that�s only the start, there�s a lot more to it. There�s being a contributing member of a team, of an ensemble. Also being a part of the music community, learning from others and teaching those less experienced than you.

Like any team an orchestra counts on all its members. Everyone is important. We count on your being in place on time, with music and instrument and able to play your part. The rehearsal is where the music comes together, not where you learn your parts. In public school there are 30 or more rehearsals per concert. Our job there is to teach students the notes, and hope that someday we may get to the music. In the NOYS there are 8 or less rehearsals per concert, we assume you can read and play the notes from the start. We start working on the music from the second rehearsal. The notes are learned outside the rehearsal. We cannot treat the NOYS rehearsals the same way we treat rehearsals in school. There just isn�t the time.

As musicians we are a part of a long line that stretches back into history. We learned our skills from others and have the opportunity (I thnk obligation) to pass it on to others. This has a lot to do with why Deborah and I work with the youth symphonies. This is an important part of musicianship.

It has long been the philosophy of the NOYS that we train teachers. The Summer String Workshop has used "students" as teachers for as long as it has existed. We often have string players from the advanced groups help the younger ones or to fill in instrument needs in NOYS. This has been very successful for us.

As adults we work with students who have 25 or so years less experience than we do, who struggle to play something that we can sight read. It enriches the larger music community for us to work with these younger musicians, it�s a part of musicianship, we get a lot out of it. Musicians see thenselves as a part of the larger whole, part of history, part of the entire musical communtity. The better the msucian the greater the whole they see themselves as. Everyone in the group contributes�.except those who think they don�t need to.

One of the hottest teaching methodologies to hit American schools in the past five years is cooperative learning. While John Dewey argued in favor of this method in the early part of the century, it subsequently fell on hard times and nearly disappeared in the competition-dominated 1980s. Today, cooperative learning is making a comeback. And it is no coincidence that its comeback parallels the rush by American business to embrace ideas of greater worker cooperation.

Of all the disciplines in the curriculum of the American school, music has the most experience with cooperative learning. While practicing a musical instrument may be a very lonely experience, most musical performances take place in cooperative settings, such as choirs, marching bands, orchestras, and musicals or operas. The success of each of these kinds of performance depends on the cooperation of a group of individuals � sometimes a very large group.

Music in the school curriculum has also always been performance-based. A movement is afoot in a number of states toward performance-based evaluation of students� academic learning. Going back to Horace Mann�s time, music in the schools has a 150-year head start in performance-based assessment. Countless music festivals and band contests have given us a workable model of performance-based assessment that combines both quantitative and qualitative elements. Music educators should be leading seminars to train the rest of us.

The late physician and biologist Lewis Thomas once surveyed the subjects that undergraduates study before applying to medical school. He found that most would-be doctors majored in biochemistry. Among the biochemists who applied to medical school, 44% were admitted. A much smaller group of medical school applicants studied music as undergraduates, but 66% of the music majors who applied were admitted. This was by far the highest percentage for any undergraduate major. Thomas claimed that the study showed that medical schools want to admit people who are steeped in the liberal arts and capable of relieving stress through playing music, acting, dancing, sculpting, and son. Thomas recommended spending the undergraduate years studying more literature, philosophy, and arts, so that a student who would be a physician will first grow as a human being.

Make a note of these future dates for Port Angeles Symphony Concerts:

February 6

March 13

April 17

There is a 10am open rehearsal the morning of each of these concerts. Tickets are $3 for students and seniors, $4 for adults and $8 for families. NOYS members can pick up one free ticket (compliments of PASO) for these performances during the Monday rehearsal the week before the performance.

The Seattle Youth Symphony will be performing in Port Angeles on May 15 as guests of the PASO. The Seattle Youth Symphony is the advanced orchestra of the five Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras. Jonathan Shames will be the conductor.