New Jersey Youth Symphony Shares a Special Visit with The MLC School of Australia

On Tuesday, October 1, young musicians of New Jersey Youth Symphony (NJYS) and the MLC School from Burwood, Australia near Sydney met to share a combined musical experience hosted by NJYS in New Providence, NJ. NJYS led by Artistic Director and Youth Symphony Conductor Jeffrey Grogan was specially selected by The MLC School to share a rehearsal with 40 string and vocal musicians all of whom are young women. MLC School is an award winning independent girls school headed by award winning musical director Karen Carey, a recipient of the National Award for Excellence for the Australian Society for Music Education and the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme.

The young women from MLC treated NJYS to a string orchestra and choral concert followed by a joint rehearsal for the orchestra and a workshop for the chorus. After the shared rehearsal, musicians from NJYS and MLC continued the bonding experience with a pizza party. A reunion occurred for Rebecca Huang, an NJYS flutist, who is from Australia and was a former member of The MLC School. New friendships were made over the evening and the night was a great success for mingling members of these two exceptional youth orchestras.

New Jersey Youth Symphony is the orchestral and ensemble division of Wharton Music Center, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. New Jersey Youth Symphony (NJYS) is located at 570 Central Avenue in New Providence. NJYS, one of the foremost youth orchestras in the state, has ten orchestras and ensembles for which auditions are held annually. NJYS’s premiere orchestra, Youth Symphony, has performed in internationally-renowned concert halls such as Carnegie Hall in New York City and Musikverein in Vienna.

Wharton Music Center, located at 60 Locust Avenue in Berkeley Heights, provides music, theater, and dance instruction, educational programs, and performances for children, teens, and adults. In addition to instruction in all instruments and voice, WMC offers classes in musical theater, drama, choral music, vocal music, music theory, audio recording, early childhood music, and music for children with special needs. Offering a range of musical genres including classical, rock, jazz, and blues, WMC is one of New Jersey’s largest independent non-profit community music centers serving students in Union, Morris, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, and surrounding counties.

CONTACT

Carol A. Ulmer

Director of Development and Marketing

Wharton Music Center

Carol.Ulmer@WMCMusic.org