Conclusion of 2023 – 2024 Season
YMW finished our first full season of well-attended concerts with an enthusiastically received Jazz concert at Yonkers Public Library / Crestwood Branch, expanding our venues and audience beyond our home base at New Rochelle Public Library. Pursuing YMW’s mission of providing musicians embarking on professional careers before Westchester audiences, our 2023-24 season saw YMW present:
A Jazz ensemble from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.
Recent graduates from NYU and Mannes School of Music performed music of Brazil, Cuba, Crete, and the Middle East, together with their own arrangements of Academy Award winning anime film scores.
Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music students played a range of chamber music.
In honor of Black History Month, an NYU violin/viola professor and a doctoral candidate from Stony Brook University performed a program of music written by or for Black musicians, including Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata.
For New Rochelle’s Arts Fest 2023, the Crystalline Chamber Collective provided a program of music by Women composers, ranging from Clara Schumann to Amy Beach.
In support of the New Rochelle Library’s efforts to have children engage with performing artists in a live setting, the Copland School’s award-winning Balsam Piano Trio delighted over 100 second-grade students from Columbus Elementary School with their highly interactive version of Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals”.
Generous donations were received from new friends and YMW’s board of directors to support of our efforts. The New Rochelle and Yonkers Public Libraries contributed in support of several programs along with the Friends of Crestwood Library. Grants were received from Arts Westchester, the Rea Charitable Trust and the Lakeshore Donor Fund.
We’re already immersed in planning for our 2024-2025 season and will soon be sharing details about upcoming concerts. We extend heartfelt thanks to all our supporters, attendees and those who have shown interest in Young Musicians of Westchester. Your support has been invaluable. We look forward to seeing you soon.