June Newsletter

Spring Concert Recap

Our 36th season closed with a variety of exciting concerts this spring. We celebrated Cinco De Mayo with our spring jazz bands before the Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble traveled to New York City. Later in the month, our two string orchestras treated us to a concert, complete with a rendition of Toy Symphony, performed by both ensembles together with some special guest musicians!

We dedicated our final performances of the season to our founder, Hugh Partridge. Triangle Youth Orchestra and Triangle Youth Symphony performed first, featuring favorites like Adoration and selections from The Swan Lake Suite. Triangle Youth Philharmonic brought us home with a double feature - including a concert that included concerto competition winner and TYP Concertmaster Seunne Khoo, followed by a joint concert with the Raleigh Youth Choir!

All of our concert videos from this year will be available to purchase on our website, so stay tuned!

Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington Festival & Competition

Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble has once again competed in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington Festival and Competition! After 5 days of fun and learning in New York City, TYJE and their director Gregg Gelb came home with many awards:

• Outstanding Saxophone section 
• Outstanding Trombone section 
• Outstanding Trumpet section 
• Outstanding drummer - Ethan Oliver
• Honorable mention Piano - Ori Moore 
• Honorable mention Alto Sax- Sean McCoy
• Honorable mention Trombone - Ben Valliere

Shoutout once again to pianist, Ori Moore, for being the sole winner of the JALC composition competition! Ori had the opportunity to record and perform with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Congratulations to all of our TYJE musicians and thank you to all of our directors and coaches who helped them acheieve this high level of success! 

 Chatham County Violin Program

Our afterschool program at Siler City and Virginia Cross Elementary Schools finished out their first full year of instruction with a final performance together on May 30th. Students performed favorites like Ode to Joy and Cripple Creek to a crowd of over 200 people! Special thanks to the Chatham County Schools adminisration, Azure Violins, Chatham County music teachers Courtney Benton and Tracey Harvel, and our violin teachers Miriam Bryant and Deborah Wood for making this program a success. We expect to add a new class of 4th graders next year and can't wait to see how our 5th grade students back again this fall! 

Welcome Eric Chang!

This spring, we also welcomed a new member of our artistic staff! Eric Chang stepped into the role of interim Triangle Youth Jazz Lab director in January. We are excited to say that Eric will be joining us permanently, starting in September! Check out Eric's bio here, and join us in welcoming him to the Triangle Youth Music Family!

A graduate of the music education program at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Eric Chang has been involved with music since the age of 10. During his time at UNCC, he studied percussion and drumset under the direction of Rick Dior, the principal percussionist of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra during that time. He has over 10 years of experience teaching in areas such as: high school marching band, elementary music programs, lesson studios, and privately. 

Eric has performed in many musical settings such as the UNCC Jazz Ensemble, and Jazz Combo; during his time at school, he also served as the principal percussionist for the UNCC Wind Ensemble. Besides playing in academic settings, Eric works as a freelance musician and has performed for galas, churches, musicals, weddings, private events, and concerts.

Senior Spotlight

This year, we are saying goodbye to a near record number of seniors! With over 50 of our musicians graduating, we want to say how proud we are of each and every one of them! Similar to last year, many of our seniors are staying local, with our two most popular college choices being UNC Chapel Hill and NC State. We have a large number of students planning to study computer science, and many plan to keep music as part of their future studies, either with double majors or minors in their instrument. Like all alumni, we hope they all keep in touch and join us for future events! 

2024 Summer Camps!

This summer, we will offer full-day jazz camps for all levels, a weekly string orchestra for beginner-intermediate players, and a week-long string camp with options for all levels (half day or full day available). Financial aid is available for all programs and anyone is welcome! 

2024-2025 Season Audition Registration Now Open!

Registration forms and audition materials for the 2024-2025 season are officially available. This year's auditions will be held on August 23rd & 24th at Peace Presbyterian Church in Cary.

TYM Triumphs!

Seunne Khoo, TYP concertmaster, intern, and winner of our TYM concerto competition, also won the North Carolina Symphony's Kathleen Price & Joseph M. Bryan Concerto Competition! This is the second year in a row that a TYM student has achieved this high honor. Congratulations Seunne!

Kashvi Kumar, a cellist in TYP, also received a major honor recently! Kashvi received first place at the Elite International Music Competition 2024. In recognition of her exceptional accomplishment in music, she got an opportunity to perform at the winners recital at the Carnegie Hall, New York on 05/18. We are so proud of all of our musicians and their achievements, both in TYM and in all aspects of their lives!

Are you a TYM alum or current student with a triumph to share? Send us an email with the subject line "TYM Triumph" to be included in our next newsletter!

Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble to Attend Midwest Clinic in Chicago!

TYJE has been selected as the only community youth group to participate in this year's Midwest Clinic, a conference for band and orchestra directors from all over the world. They will perform and work with master jazz musicians, composers, and clinicians. 

Over 18,000 educators will attend the conference that takes place in Chicago in the month of December. We are very excited about this new experience for our TYJE musicians!