Irvine Young Concert Artists

• Congratulations to those who auditioned this past week for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. I wish those who auditioned via video the best of luck!!!

• Congratulations to all the IYCA musicians who performed last Sunday at Fullerton College the Mozart Symphony No.29 and the Grieg Peer Gynt Suite. I heard many wonderful comments from kids, college students, and parents in the audience. We will post the video of this performance online shortly.

• Congratulations to those who made the Irvine All District Middle School Honors Orchestra yesterday. =)

• Photos and video of our concert in Irvine City Hall during the biweekly city hall meeting will be available by next rehearsal, Feb 7th. There will be 1 free photo for every performer and DVDs can be available upon request. Please email iycamusic@gmail.com if you wish to have a DVD.

• The Silent Auction bid for IYCA at the Truman Awards was won by Melissa Witul from Animal Acres Sanctuary (a charity) who won IYCA for $1000! This will go towards the Tour 2009.

• Photos from the Truman Awards are up! Please check them out on:http://matthewsaville.smugmug.com/gallery/7117238_ifgKf. They look fantastic! For those wish to purchase copies, please contact photographer Matthew Saville at his website listed above. The individual photos will be used for our orchestra roster and should be updated shortly.

• When is the next concert? March 10, May 26, June 23rd. All at 5pm, Irvine City Hall. We perform 3 times from now until the end of the school year for 3 Irvine City Hall meetings. The performance will be 10 minutes long for each performance.

• IYCA WILL BE MOVING FROM ATRIA SENIOR CENTER BEGINNING FEB 7, 2009! Today’s rehearsal will be our last rehearsal in 2009 here in Atria. Many, many thank you’s to the staff here and the kind residents, as this was our home since April 2008. We are eternally grateful for the facility. The reason for the move is simple: In 2008-2009, IYJA and IYCA have both grown too quickly in size and Atria Senior Living is no longer large enough to hold over 60 musicians. Atria is running out of chairs for us, and in this past week, Dean Anderson and myself have found Pacific Church, located right next to Irvine Valley College (IVC), to be the perfect location for both orchestras. The building is new, spacious, and can easily hold a full symphony orchestra and an audience. The acoustics will also be very similar to that of a fine concert hall. So, beginning next Saturday, Feb 7th, rehearsals will be held at Pacific Church in Irvine. It is located next to the Oak Creek Golf Club and IVC. The major cross streets are Irvine Center Drive and Jeffrey.

• Feb 7th will also be our next orchestra photo shoot. Photographer Alex Lombardi will shoot the entire orchestra as well as individual headshots for our website. Please come dressed if you did not have your picture taken.

• NEW REHEARSAL TIME for IYCA members! Starting in Feb 2009, IYCA will rehearse at our new location from 12:30-3pm.

• Gig Rehearsals for those who are interested will begin shortly. To be announced. Let’s wait until after our move to Pacific Church is complete.

• Tour 2009 itinerary is nearly complete. Step One for those who are interested to go on our Tour 2009 will be to go online this week and view the itinerary which will include dates and exact locations of concerts.

• For those who missed our last Fullerton College concert – either by canceling last minute by email, phone call, or not showing up (see your name below) – you will be required to perform in the Irvine City Hall concert on ______ which is not mandatory. In the future, all information of concerts will be announced during rehearsal, posted online, and passed out as a “flyer” to bring home for your parents. Mandatory concerts means “required” and are not optional. For those who miss another mandatory concert next time, we may kindly ask you to not return to our orchestra.

Absent for Fullerton College
 
VIOLIN I
Lauren Kim
Helen Baik
Madeline Lee
 
 
VIOLIN II
Chris Tsao
Steve Park
Vincent Hsieh
Jamie Cheng
Heesoo Kim
 
 
VIOLA
Julie Hwang
Christine Hwang
Grace Baek
Peter Tran
 
 
CELLO
Brian Kim
Joy Chang
 
FLUTE
Annie Wang
Clara Baik
 
OBOE
Ivan Liang

Photos on Feb 7, 2008 for those who missed photo shoots.

• You must email iycamusic@gmail.com if you have a schedule conflict for any rehearsals. Even if I see you at lessons, please send an email.

• Tuition and applications are due today! If you forgot, please have them submitted after rehearsal ends at 3pm.

• Our trip and performance at Disneyland has been confirmed! We have now been officially accepted and will perform there on November 1st. For those taking the SAT that day, please join us after. It is free for all IYCA and IYJA members. For more details, please go visit “2008-2009 Concert Schedule.”

• Our trip and performance to Catalina Island has been confirmed! It will take place on November 15th. For more details, please go visit “2008-2009 Concert Schedule.”

• Volunteering for Irvine Mayor and City Council info is posted under COMMUNITY SERVICES. Please contact Julie Hwang after rehearsal at 3pm for information. There are 4 weekends left before elections. Letters of recommendations will be provided for those who volunteer. When does the volunteering begin? Today, Saturday Oct 11th, after orchestra rehearsal. If you cannot do it, you can volunteer on Oct 18th, 25th, and Nov 1st as well, from 7am to noon. You’ll be doing a lot of walking, door to door, throughout Irvine. No phone calls or emailing. The campaign headquarters is rotating between 2 addresses, as posted online. Contact Julie Hwang during break or after rehearsal for information.

• Those who wish to work on Tour 2009 with me, please come to Atria from 12pm-1pm to work. We will hold meetings at that time.

• KDOC’s Craig Hume is working on a schedule for IYCA to perform at the TV station. Keep checking website for further details. 

• The 2008-2009 Concert Schedule has been updated. Up to November 2008.

• The History of the Orchestra has been updated.

• The Biographies of our new conductors has been updated.

• The Speech from Xian Concert has been posted.

• For those who wish to play solos this year, you must fill out the form online under “Solo Concerto Opportunities.”

• Rehearsal order & what to practice will be posted by today.

• Roster of both IYJA and IYCA will be posted by today.

• Attendance, rehearsal order, and what to practice will also be posted by today, for both orchestras.

• Reminder that IYCA Application Forms and Tuition will be due this Sat, Oct 4, 2008. If you are taking the SAT exam that day, please submit your forms on Oct 11, 2008.

• Rehearsals are now for IYJA (10am-12pm) and IYCA (1-3pm). Check the website for the 2008-2009 Rehearsal Schedule. If you miss a rehearsal, please remember you must call and leave a message for Albert at (949)338-1535 or email him. Do not email Dean Anderson.

• Volunteer Opportunities for Helping Krom/Agran/Kang/Gallinger are now posted. THERE IS AN EVENT THIS SATURDAY! Please check website for further info. Also, check our website regularly. It is updated every other day if not more. There are 5 weeks until the elections. For those who missed last week’s rehearsal, please read the announcements below.

• Tour 2009 is now underway! I am working my good friend Justin Smith and Heritage Festivals on a possible Taiwan/Korea Tour 2009. Again, it will be a customized tour – customized with my artistic goals in mind, from venues to audience to joint concert musicians. Here are the venues we have been discussing all week as reprinted from our latest email dated Oct 1, 2008:

• Africa Project. For those who are interested in volunteering for the Africa Project which Debbie Bianchi heads (Irvine Prevention Coalition), please visit our COMMUNITY SERVICES page.

• Irvine Prevention Coalition is looking for representatives from IYCA for its meetings once a month at Irvine City Hall. For more information, please email me at albertwutheviolinist@hotmail.com for more information. The meetings are held the 2nd Thursday of each month. For more info, visitwww.irvinepreventioncoalition.org.

• Atria Center is looking for volunteers outside of orchestra rehearsal time. For those interested, please contact director Ladd Roberts at (949)654-8500. Let him know you are a member of IYCA and Albert Wu instructed you to contact him.

• Volunteering for John Campbell anyone? For those who wish to volunteer for Congressman John Campbell, it is impossible. I called his office today and they are directing volunteers to the OC Republican Party. There is an office in Irvine for those interested. Your contributions would be needed for Senator John Cain’s bid for the White House.

• Volunteering for the Democratic Party of Orange County is now possible! Please visit their office at 4237 Campus Drive, Suite B-160
  Irvine, CA
  (Great location in Irvine Town Center, across from UCI). Their office number is (949)379-6139.

• Application Forms. Are passed out today. If you missed rehearsal, please download a copy from our website. Bring it to the next rehearsal with a check stapled to it. It is due next week. Thank you.

• New rehearsal times. IYJA is 10am-12pm. IYCA is 1-3pm. 12-1pm is lunch time, however, we may use that time in the coming weeks for the IYCA Chamber Orchestra if we have special concerts.

• Please be 15 mins to rehearsals. In other words, 9:45am and 12:45pm. 

• Atria Senior Center Rules. Again, as repeated last week, NO RUNNING INSIDE THE SENIOR CENTER. The senior citizens live here. Please be respectful. Do not run in the hallways. During breaks, please go outside. A lot of complaints since June and July 2008 of kids running around inside. Any student that is caught running in the hallways will be dismissed from the orchestra.

• Parking at Atria. Please park in the parking stalls. Do not park in the red zone, except to drop off. Thank you.

• Those IYJA members who wish to play in both orchestras, please stay. You can learn incredible things from an older student. Always. I encourage it.

• Let me again introduce our new IYCA conductor Dean Anderson. His bio is now posted online. A fine violinist, Dean will be working with us for 08-09. Please feel free to email and call him if you have any questions. You can find his info under CONTACT US on our website.

• Repertoire to practice. Everything we rehearse in orchestra you must practice at home on your own. For now, we are rehearsing music from the tour program with our new conductor Dean Anderson. From 2008-2009, you will be responsible to print out your own music from our website. Everything is online. We will not pass out music. You must print it at home and practice your parts. The login is “iyca” and the password is “iyca”.

• Thank you to those who played last week at South Coast Plaza. I have new photos from Alex Lombardi which I will have Jiten or Rupen post online immediately. Also, IYCA made a hiDef video of the entire concert AND the Festival of Children also hired a professional cameraman to video the entire event. I will post the info on the DVD as soon as it is finished.

• Next Concert! Will be for live TV, channel 12, KDOC. Chance, Kenneth, Grace, Lydia, myself, Jiten and Rupen performed there last time in June 08 at 6am. Be prepared to perform there in 2 or 3 weeks time, live, on air, with interviews following! Stay tuned on the location, date, and time which will all be posted online under CONCERTS. Repertoire will be from the tour. Soloists will be from the tour. We will try to feature those who went and those who did not go on tour as soloists. Also, we have been invited to perform there several times by Bert Ellis, the station owner, so the level must be extremely high every time.

• Catalina Trip. A few points. One. The date as of today that IYCA has been invited to go and perform is Nov 15th. This may change. I will hear back soon and let you know. Two. The trip will most likely be a 1-day trip. We leave early in the morning and come back late at night. Parents are invited. If you wish to stay overnight, you will need to book your own rooms. Three. We will be rehearsing and playing at The Casino. Four. This is not mandatory. Five. The only cost for all of this will be the cost of the Catalina Flyer roundtrip tickets. Are friends invited? Yes, but they will need to buy their own tickets and IYCA will not supervise them or chaperone them.

• Disneyland Concerts. I submitted last Thursday our concert DVD from Korea to Disneyland’s Community Arts Showcase and will hear back soon. If accepted, we will perform in Nov or Dec 08: they will give us a few dates which are all Saturday’s. So, rather than have rehearsals, we will be at Disneyland. Again, this is optional. Are friends invited? Yes, but they will need to buy their own tickets and meet you in the park. I plan to have IYCA perform in Disneyland twice this school year, once in Nov/Dec 08 and once again in April 2009. The second time will be the Disney Magic Music Days.

• Volunteer Opportunities for Mayor Beth Krom, Larry Agran, Sukhee Kang, and Todd Gallinger. It started this week! Info for this has been posted online since Sept 22nd. As was announced last week: those who wish to receive community service hours AND personal letters of recommendation from our Mayor Beth Krom MUST attend the campaign walks. I will do them myself as I have done two years back. You will need to participate a minimum of 6 hours to receive this letter of recommendation. Those will participated 2 years ago should do so again. I will make sure your letters are worth your extra effort.

• Letters of Recommendation from our Mayor. Those who have been in this orchestra for 1 rehearsal, 1 year, or even 4 years will only receive letters from our mayor if you volunteer for her campaign. Details are on our website. Go under COMMUNITY SERVICES. When you have completed your volunteering and need your letters, I will need the following from you. One. A brag sheet of your accomplishments in high school. Obviously, this is for the seniors. For everyone else, watch your colleagues and learn. Second. A sheet with your name, high school name, address, phone number, email, names of colleges you are applying to, when the letters of recs are due, how many years you have been in the orchestra and what you have done (how many and which concerts) with IYCA in this time. Those who did the tour, make sure you write that down. Those who soloed on tour, make sure you note that too! I will be posting this on a separate link on our webpage for people to download. You will need to give Mayor Krom at least 2 weeks notice for one or several letters of recs.

• Volunteer Opportunity for “Steve Young for Congress!”…I received an email back from Steve Young’s campaign manager. It’s simple. They need volunteers to walk door to door and hang flyers on the doors. Minimum 10 hours required to receive a letter of rec. November 11th is the election. Plan your weekends. For most of us, including myself, my only day to volunteer is on Saturday afternoons after rehearsal. Another great thing to add on. Those who are super interested in politics and want to volunteer more, please see me afterwards. If you are interested in volunteering for Steve Young’s bid for Congress, please see me after rehearsal.

• Letters of Recommendation from Josh Roach or Cosima Luther. Both of these musicians are awesome and more than colleagues but friends. Josh is no longer able to conduct due to his duties as Personnel Manager of the USC Symphony; he is a fulltime staff there. And he isn’t able to make the 2 hour drive every Saturday which he did last year. However, those who are applying to USC and wish to have his letter of rec may do so. This will be a very direct and powerful rec. Again, required for this will be: A sheet with your name, high school name, address, phone number, email, names of colleges you are applying to, when the letters of recs are due, how many years you have been in the orchestra and what you have done (how many and which concerts) with IYCA in this time. Those who did the tour, make sure you write that down. Those who soloed on tour, make sure you note that too! Both Josh and Cosima are conducting students of the great Professor Larry Livingston.

• A quick word about volunteering and letters of rec: As a teacher, I can tell you this much. The more you do, the harder you work, the more you are rewarded. There are, for me, 2 paths in life you can take. You choose. Those who have played a lot of concerts with IYCA will definitely get a different letter than those who did very little. I cannot think of a better model and reward system than this. It seems to be a good model for life as well too!

• In a phone call few weeks back, Mayor Krom has invited IYCA to perform in city hall and have photos taken with the Olympians from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Wait for date and time. It will be posted online and you will be notified by phone call. I had no idea the majority of the Team USA water polo team are from UC Irvine!

• Attendance Policy. Please call the IYCA number (949)338-1535 if  you cannot make rehearsals. You can also email iycamusic@gmail.com or albertwutheviolinist@hotmail.com . If you do not call or email, you will be marked as absent. 4 absences without explanation means you are out. Dean Anderson and myself will make sure we call you if it becomes a problem before we get to this point.

• Personnel Managers. In 08-09, we will have a few individuals who will be in charge of managing the orchestra. With attedance, Angela Kim will be taking attendance and making calls if you are not here. Margaret Wang and Yunee Choi will be in charge of making phone calls in regards to: schedule changes, location changes, bonus events, reminders.

• I’m also working on a possible invite to perform this year in the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. A friend of mine knows the Wynn family and we are submitting our videos to them. Dates and location will be posted as soon as they are confirmed.

• Music Stands. If you are asked to bring a music stand to a concert and you forget, you will not play the concert. Undertsand? If you are a soloist, we will skip your piece or replace you. Please bring music stands, always, to a concert. I will not be bringing stands to concerts anymore, just the sheet music.

• 2008-09 rehearsal schedule is now finished. Please check online to see the schedule. The concert schedule is still in progress. Check it constantly for changes. I will annonce them as we go.

• I need quotes from those who went on tour, soloists or not, for newspaper articles. I will contact you individually and ask you to email me a quote. Rule: If I tell you the emails will be due at “x” time on “x” day and I don’t receive them, it will not be printed. Same rule for photos. Do not be late. Do not forget. There were those who were late or forgot to take photos before the tour and had it not been for photoshop, would not be on the programs. This year, if you miss it, I’m sorry. Now, regarding the article quotes: I need memories. Reflections. Favorite moments. Funny or not, I want them. Music and non musical moments. For the Chinese papers, I want Chinese or Taiwanse students for quotes. For the Korean papers, likewise. I will balance them 50-50. We will need them this week. For those who did not go on tour, we will do this for you as well but for our Nov or Dec events. Promise!

• Only 3 concerts in 2008-09 are mandatory. The rest of the concerts – whether it is at city hall or at charity events – are optional. The 3 mandatory concerts will take place either in the Samueli Theater, Segestrom Hall, UCI, or IVC. And it will feature many soloists as well as full orchestra pieces.

• Paid Gigs. Please check on our website under MEMBERS for “JOBS/GIGS”. Info for paid gigs will be posted on here. This is a new idea, one which has been on my mind for 4 years. No youth orchestra does this but should! Those who wish to play “gigs” on the weekends for weddings (for example) can but will need to audition. Audition requirements will be posted online and will consist of music from the all strings repertoire, from Mozart Divertimentos to Vivaldi’s The 4 Seasons. Gigs will pay between $45 to $50/hour per person. Some a lot more. I will be playing at many of these gigs this year, as will Dean Anderson and other professional players. If you can play the notes, you’re hired! Forms of consent from your parents will need to be signed.

• A few “new” philosophies which IYCA will incorporate this year as it enlarges.