Sussex County Youth Orchestras to perform first indoor concert in two years this Sunday

The Sussex County Youth Orchestras will perform its first indoor concert in two years with a look back to its European tours and amazing tour to China.

This concert, to be performed on Sunday, Dec. 5, at 3 p.m. at Newton High School is a positive look forward in the music education of youth, despite the many roadblocks put before them.

Its youngest musicians, The Rocking Strings, will celebrate Christmas as they perform a new arrangement of “Jingle Bell Rock.”

The premiere performance of the “Sussex County Suite,” written and conducted by SCYO alumna Stephanie Leotsakos, is a highlight of the Preparatory Orchestra’s part of the program. Leotsakos earned her M.A. in music composition from Rutgers University and a B.A. in music with a certificate in vocal performance from Princeton University. She will also sing “O Mio Babbino Caro,” from the comic opera Gianni Schicchi by Puccini, with the Rocking Strings Orchestra.

In a more serious role, Leotsakos will team up with another SCYO alumnus, Alan Tedesco, playing piccolo trumpet. Leotsakos will sing the aria “Let the Bright Seraphim” from the oratorio Samson, with the trumpet answering her with an echo effect.

The Youth Orchestra, with high school and college students augmented by mentors, will delight neighbors here in the USA as they did in Europe and China with “A Salute to the Big Bands” and selections from the very popular Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls.” It is tradition to play a march at the Sussex County Youth Orchestras’ Concerts, and the program will end with the “U.S. Field Artillery March,” with audience participation joining the orchestra singing “The Caissons Go Rolling Along.”

Funding for this free concert has been made possible in part with funds from the NJ State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment of the arts as administered by the Sussex County Arts and Heritage Council.