By Reader Staff
The Festival at Sandpoint’s Youth Orchestra will perform its Winter Concert at the Heartwood Center on Monday, Dec. 18, at 6 p.m. All ages are welcome and admission is free.
Courtesy photo.
Classes for members of the Youth Orchestra began in September, and the Winter Concert will be their first performance of their 2023-’24 season.
The Youth Orchestra is the longest-standing educational program offered by the Festival at Sandpoint. The orchestra program began in 1998 to help students develop the necessary skills and knowledge to master their orchestral string instruments.
More than two decades later, the Festival at Sandpoint continues to offer free string classes for students of any age.
Currently, the program is composed of two groups, a Beginning Orchestra and Continuing Orchestra, led by FAS Youth Orchestra Conductor Karen Dignan. Both groups are open to any orchestral string players, including the violin, viola, cello, bass and more. Classes are free for all ages and held weekly on Monday evenings. Students can join at any time from September through May.
The Beginning Orchestra is designed for students who are still getting started but have a basic knowledge of their instrument and reading music, as well as students who are new to playing in an ensemble.
“Many of the Beginning Orchestra members are new to ensemble playing, and this is their first experience in an orchestra,” Dignan said. “Having several players in the group who have been in the orchestra previously, even if only for a year, really helps the new students adapt quickly.”
The Continuing Orchestra class is for intermediate and advanced students looking to hone their skills and expertise through ensemble playing.
“The students in our Continuing Orchestra rehearse and perform with the full group as well as creating their own smaller ensembles,” Dignan stated. “It gives them the opportunity to choose their own instrumentation and music and figure out how to make it work for a performance.”
To learn more about the Youth Orchestra and the Festival at Sandpoint’s other year-round education programs, visit festivalatsandpoint.com/education.
While we have you ...
... if you appreciate that access to the news, opinion, humor, entertainment and cultural reporting in the Sandpoint Reader is freely available in our print newspaper as well as here on our website, we have a favor to ask. The Reader is locally owned and free of the large corporate, big-money influence that affects so much of the media today. We're supported entirely by our valued advertisers and readers. We're committed to continued free access to our paper and our website here with NO PAYWALL - period. But of course, it does cost money to produce the Reader. If you're a reader who appreciates the value of an independent, local news source, we hope you'll consider a voluntary contribution. You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.
You can contribute at either Paypal or Patreon.
Contribute at Patreon Contribute at Paypal
Coming up this week! Don’t miss out on Live performances of music & theater, fundraising, and more! See the full list of events in the 
