SUBMITTED NEWS
WOODBRIDGE, Va. – Ankush Bahl, the Assistant Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, will join the Youth Symphony Orchestra for an intensive rehearsal session on Monday, April 22, 2013, 6:30-8:30 p.m. The rehearsal, at Gar-Field High School, is open to the public. Community members, music students and teachers are invited to join YOPW as observers of this event.
“We welcome community members and Prince William County teachers to join us for this special event. We hope that it will provide helpful insights and strategies for the music teachers in Prince William County that they can apply in their own teaching,” said Music Director, John Devlin.
The orchestra will rehearse Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faune and Mozart’s Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio. Both of these pieces will be performed on the orchestra’s season-ending concert on May 5th.
“The students will enjoy working with a young, vibrant, American conductor who is a prominent figure in the DC cultural landscape. Having worked with Mr. Bahl over many years, I know that he will bring an energy and an enthusiasm that will create a wonderful music-making experience for the students,” said Devlin.
Conductor Ankush Kumar Bahl is currently the Assistant Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra and an Assistant Conductor with the Orchestre National de France. Bahl is the proud recipient both the 2011 Sir Georg Solti Career Assistance Award and the 2009 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Scholarship. Bahl was the Music Director of the New Jersey Youth Symphony and has also worked as an Assistant Conductor with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Youth Symphony. Bahl is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and received a double degree in music and rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and completed his master’s degree in orchestral conducting at the Manhattan School of Music.
For more than 30 years, the Youth Orchestras of Prince William has provided exceptional instrumental education for the youth of the region. We offer opportunities for a wide spectrum of students, ranging from beginning string players and intermediate wind players to advanced students performing professional symphonic repertoire. YOPW enrolls approximately 325 students in three string orchestras, two symphony orchestras, a wind symphony, and a variety of chamber music ensembles. Our students are primarily from Prince William County, Virginia, but YOPW members come from all over Northern Virginia and North Central Virginia. For more information about the Youth Orchestras of Prince William visit our website: yopwva.org.
