Last month the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra gave 104 amateur musicians a taste of what it's like to be a part of a professional orchestra. These individuals participated in BSO Academy, a weeklong camp of lessons, rehearsals, master classes and, finally, a concert at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.
The
New York Times profiled many members of the BSO Academy, including a cold-war-era Navy pilot; a judge’s assistant who took up the viola just three and a half years ago; and a French horn player who was able to make it through the vigorous preparation and performance despite a tremor from her Parkinson’s disease.
“It was a musically enthusiastic, even obsessive, bunch. Most spend countless hours a week practicing and playing in wind bands or community orchestras or chamber groups, in many cases more than one,” writes the New York Times. “It’s an older group. Many returned to music with fervor in retirement or in homes recently emptied of growing children. For some, music-making is the backbone of their social ties or an escape from the pressures of work.”
You can read the entire story
here.