The Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO) will host its annual daylong celebration to highlight youth with its free “Play Your Part” concert on Saturday, Nov. 9.
The concert showcases the work of over 1,000 students from 200 schools across southeast Wisconsin and northern Illinois. It will showcase performances from symphony and string orchestras to flute and wind ensembles, jazz bands and steel-pan groups — all led by students. This year will spotlight a high school senior who discovered her passion for the cello in second grade.
Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra has been around since the 1950s with thousands of students served every year. It operates in partnership with schools across Wisconsin and northern Illinois to provide an avenue for students — in typically underserved backgrounds — to discover and foster their love for music. MYSO has grown from one orchestra and 30 students to one of the country’s largest and most respected youth orchestras.
The free concert “Play Your Part” operates as a fundraiser for its programs where students will support each other through playing music.
“Our goal this year is $130,000 and we are well on our way to the culmination of this student-led fundraising,” said Linda Edelstein, CEO of MYSO. “It’s a really super fun day. It’s the one day all year where all of the groups are playing on the same day. So you get this wonderful sense of the breadth and depth and magnitude from our beginning strings and band to our most advanced ensemble.”
The concert goes from 10.-6 p.m. in 45-minute stretches across multiple stages. It takes the full eight hours due to the number of students eager to perform, Edelstein said.
It operates as an open house where attendees are encouraged to freely move between stages to revel in as many performances as possible.
This year, like all others, will highlight one youth from MYSO. Adela Ramirez discovered her love for the cello in the second grade while enrolled in MYSO’s programs. She stuck with it, and MYSO, for ten years where she experienced transformational growth in both music and her life.
“As a musician, what you learn in music is not just the mechanics of playing an instrument, but you learn focus and discipline and time management and critical thinking skills and problem-solving, complex problem-solving. You learn verbal communication. You learn how to communicate effectively,” Edelstein said. “You learn about delayed gratification, and so all of these areas are the thing you learn about teamwork, are the areas that every person needs to be successful, in their families, at school, in their communities and in their work.”
What Edelstein listed is the story of Ramirez — and many others. Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra’s students mostly come from marginalized backgrounds with limited access to music programming. It wants to not only serve the youth in music, but foster growth in their personal lives as they use the skills learned to further themselves.
“Play Your Part” will be held Saturday, Nov. 9 at the Sharon Lynne Center for the Arts, 3270 Mitchell Park Drive, Brookfield, from 10-6 p.m.
It is completely free to attend. No registration is required.
