On a Sunday afternoon, Jacobsen Woollen, director of the Illinois Youth Symphony Orchestra, gently conducts 45 young musicians with patience in the Grant Conservatory of Music and Dance. This is in preparation for their Nov. 24 concert at the University of Illinois Springfield’s Performing Arts Center. Their “HQ,” as Woollen called it, is a beautiful Baptist church building, bought and redesigned to be a space for young musicians and dancers to practice and improve their skills.
IYSO was created in 2020 when the Sangamon Valley Youth Symphony merged with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra organization. Music education is at the core of IYSO’s goal, with a focus on elementary to high school students.
IYSO has five ensembles that range in age and experience. Elementary students start at the Starter Strings ensemble and work their way up to the Junior Strings ensemble. As students enter middle school, they can begin to audition for Preparatory Orchestra, an intermediate class. Students who succeed in further auditions can join the Concert Orchestra and, finally, the Symphony Orchestra.
The beginning program rates start at $200 for starting strings to cover 30 weeks. For the higher-level programs, the price increases to $350 per season.
The program’s tuition is like other schools in the region and cheaper than most programs across the state. Some programs in northern Illinois cost upwards of $700 or more. If financial assistance is needed, there are full-cost scholarships for students.
The Nov. 24 concert will feature intermediate and higher-level ensembles. IYSO’s concert will be paired with a performance from the UIS Orchestra.
The Concert Orchestra will perform songs from Pirates of the Caribbean, an overture from Mozart and a blue Americana song called Blue Ridge Run. The Symphony Orchestra will play An American in Paris by George Gershwin, Romeo and Juliet Overture by Tchaikovsky and “The Impossible Dream” from the musical, Man of La Mancha.
Woollen said choosing songs for the concert was an important part of the process.
“The most important is that it’s music that the students will enjoy playing, that it’ll motivate them, they’ll get excited about it, and they’ll feel good playing it,” Woollen said. “The second thing is that we want to provide a diverse palette of pieces in terms of every dimension you can think of, whether it’s pop music, movie music, classical music, era music, that’s from a broad array of composers from different backgrounds, from different times.”
With the program being primarily for education, performances are an output for accomplishment and expression for the students. Woollen said he doesn’t want to just educate and grow his students’ music skills but to “develop them into good citizens.”
“Playing music in a group is the perfect dollhouse of a larger society,” Woollen said. “They’re developing the ability to listen in a global way, to understand their changing role, that sometimes they’re the protagonist and other times they are the accompaniment and a supporting player. They’re learning how to build consensus, how to find a way of all agreeing on how they want to play a certain piece.”
Avery Arisman, violinist for the Youth Symphony orchestra and a recipient of a scholarship dedicated to Emma Shafer for her community service, said not only is dedication important, but also collaboration.
“It’s nice to have a group of people who all are sympathizing with each other, trying to figure it out, and working on playing together as a group,” Arisman said. Aidan Lee, a violinist who plays the role of the concertmaster, agreed that collaboration is key.
“Performance to me is just practice working together,” Lee said. “Performances are just another practice where we work together and play.”
Audra Davison, who sings the powerful vocals for the orchestra’s playing of “The Impossible Dream,” has been a part of the program since she was in the third grade. Now in her seventh year, she says her experience with IYSO not only has grown her confidence as a musician but also as a person.
“It (IYSO) helps you develop good friendships,” Davison said. “It helps you with social skills. It also helps you develop a lot of things that you can get from other places, but when you’re with the IYSO it’s something special that’ll keep you for the rest of your life.”
Davison also said she wants to impart a sense of pride with her performance.
“I want to portray how I feel through my voice to the audience,” Davison said. “I feel very proud when I sing this very confident piece and I want the audience to feel that confidence as well.”
The show will start at 4 p.m. Nov. 24. General audience tickets are $15 and $5 for UIS students.
Cesar Toscano graduated from Columbia Chicago with a B.A. in creative writing and found love for journalism during his last year of college editing for the Columbia Chronicle. He is currently studying in the Public Affairs Reporting program at University of Illinois Springfield.
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