There’s a nice article — it came out last week and I forgot to post it — about George Cleve and the Midsummer Mozart Youth Camerata. I played with the Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra back before the wheel was invented. I sat next to, and learned from, a wonderful oboist, Debbie Henry. I miss those days. (Although I don’t miss the driving. It was difficult to drive without wheels.)
I realized I wanted to stick with music when I started playing, and became a member of Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. (These days they use adults when they use winds, I believe, but for a few years they had high school wind players.) Youth groups really are vital. I’m so glad George and his wife, flutist Maria Tamburrino, are doing this!
I see no videos of the adult orchestra or the youth camerata up at YouTube, but I do see this one with Christina Major (who was with Opera San José from 1997 to 2000 and 2003 to 2004) singing and the orchestra playing (you can hear ’em, you just can’t see ’em. (The principal oboist is now the wonderful Laura Griffiths.)
