Livermore-Amador Symphony
Youth Orchestra
2011 Performance
The 2011 concert of the Livermore-Amador Symphony Youth Orchestra, LASYO, took place on the evening of Saturday August 6. The performance included the overture to Mozart's Don Giovanni; "Saturday Night Waltz" and "Hoedown" from Copland's Rodeo (video, 5:09 minutes long); scene number 1 from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (video, 3:23 min.); Barber's "Adagio for Strings" (video, 8:39 min.); waltz number 2 from Shostakovich's suite for variety orchestra (video, 4:13 min.); and Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1" (video with acknowledgements, encore, and orchestra list, 12:56 min.). Click here to see the concert program (64K pdf) including personnel list and program notes.
Registration and Schedule
LASYO, a summer orchestra established by the Symphony Association, is open to musicians ages 13–21. Applications for LASYO's third season were due by May 10, 2011, and auditions were held in late May. Rehearsals were on Tuesdays through August 2 from 7–9:30 p.m. at the Bothwell Arts Center, 2466 8th Street, Livermore CA. There was a concert on August 6 starting at 8 p.m. in the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church of Livermore.
The 2011 registration fee was $10, and tuition was $100, with some scholarships available and a family discount: tuition for the first child was $100, but tuition was $50 for each additional child in a family. To see the 2011 registration form, click here.
Information about the next season of LASYO will be available early in 2012. If you have any questions, please contact Betsy Hausburg at (925) 443-6953 or vdt.director@sbcglobal.net.
Music Directors
Göran Berg and Kathy Boster
Göran Berg holds a bachelor’s degree in violin pedagogy from the Royal Swedish Music Academy at Stockholm University and a master’s degree in music performance and Suzuki pedagogy from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. With over 35 years of music teaching experience, he conducts parent and teacher training classes throughout the United States and Europe. Berg teaches violin and viola, conducts orchestra, and coaches chamber music. He is creator and director of the new Suzuki program at the Crowden Music Center in Berkeley, and he is the owner and artistic director of the Sycamore Strings Academy in Livermore.
Berg utilizes ethnic music like fiddle tunes from different parts of the world in his teaching as a complement to classical instrumental studies. He writes original arrangements of Scandinavian fiddle music for violins and for orchestra/string quartet; his “Fiddle Heart” series of books and CDs are used by educators internationally. He has also published string arrangements in the Eclectic Strings Series, Book 1, at Alfred Publications. For more information visit the Sycamore Strings Academy and Fiddle Heart Music Books websites.
A native of Columbus, Ohio, Kathy Boster is currently the band, orchestra, and choir director at East Avenue Middle School in Livermore. In June 2010 she completed her tenth year of teaching; over the years she has taught music from elementary all the way up through high school.
Boster holds a BA cum laude in Music Education from California State University, Fresno, where she played under the batons of Dr. Lawrence Sutherland and Dr. Gary Gilroy. While a member of the CSU Fresno Wind Ensemble, she performed at the famed Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Outside of the classroom, Boster maintains an active playing schedule. Her playing credits include Tri-Valley Repertory Theater (formerly Pleasanton Playhouse), Alameda Civic Light Opera, Douglas Morrison Theater in Hayward, the Pleasanton Community Concert Band, and the Hayward Municipal Band. She is currently a member of the Livermore-Amador Symphony (and its pit orchestra for the annual production of The Nutcracker with Valley Dance Theatre), as well as serving as concertmaster of the Ohlone Wind Orchestra. She has recorded for the wind band series of the British label Doyen, for Johnson Digital Audio, and for Summit Records.
Both the Livermore-Amador Symphony and the Livermore-Amador Symphony Youth Orchestra have Facebook pages.
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2010 Performance
The 2010 LASYO concert began at 8 p.m. on Saturday July 31 in the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church of Livermore, at the northeast corner of 4th & L Streets in Livermore. Admission was free, children were welcome, and the Symphony Guild hosted a reception for the orchestra and audience in the church's Fellowship Hall after the concert.
The approximately seventy orchestra members, all age 21 or younger, came from all over the Tri-Valley region of San Francisco's East Bay Area. They performed pieces by Beethoven, Sibelius, and more under the direction of Conductor Göran Berg and Assistant Conductor Kathy Boster.
Click here to see the concert program (52K pdf), and have a look at several of the concert pieces on YouTube: The "Radetzky March" by Strauss was conducted by Kathy Boster, and "Andante Festivo" by Sibelius was conducted by Göran Berg. The concert concluded with "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1" by Elgar and conducted by Berg; it featured Janet Holmes playing the church's Casavant Frères pipe organ.
© Livermore-Amador Symphony Association