Sphinx Chamber Orchestra Tour

How many miles has it been, it's nearly impossible to count. But I must say each one out on the road with "La Familia" has been beyond memorable. When we returned from our respective home cities for the first day of tour in Bowling Green, OH back in September, everything felt amazingly familiar. We sat down in seats seemingly warm, gazing across the orchestra at smiling faces we've seen for years now. Working through the repertoire with Maestro Gupton with so many insightful ideas coming from everyone in the orchestra as well. I LOVE IT! It's like no other experience playing here. And it's not just being around these amazing artists for a month that keeps me smiling; we're traversing through parts of America I never expected to get to see! Every city we've been to so far has it's own special flavor, literally. We always manage to stumble upon some of the most interesting and often tasty local fare: a private room at a small hibachi in Elyria, OH, giant margaritas at a small cantina in Bowling Green, Wine Tasting at the most fabulous Biltmore Estate, and the most heavenly seared tuna/salmon salad and assorted mussels (judging from the yums surrounding the shellfish platters, I didn't partake) I've encountered in awhile, and I can't possibly forget the lovely dinner party hosted by Jim Rose in his beautiful home in Akron. Then there's the fall, a season I miss very dearly living under the forever blue skies of Los Angeles and growing up in Las Vegas desert. COLOR!!! What a concept!!! It's like watching little explosions of red, orange, and yellow fireworks as we speed through the countryside in Eddie's autobus :-)

Oh yes, and the yoga! Our group yoga sessions have really made this tour special for me. I've had the amazing opportunity to lead yoga "classes" 3-4 times a week at all hours of the day/night: Sometimes inside sometimes out, sometimes by candlelight and other times in the hotel hallway. We even had a few random wanderers join in, inspired by the good vibes we must have been emanating! I feel very honored that my colleagues were open enough to give me a shot at teaching, honing my skills and solidifying this as a fixture in my life,and I honestly LOVE looking across the orchestra and seeing people reeling from a "yoga high" (which translates to relaxed and at ease, kind of oxymoronic :-)). Two of my passions, yoga and music, all linked up in one place. . . BLISS.

So many heartening experiences and more to come as we move closer and closer to our Carnegie climax. Leaving Rochester now en route to NYC with Virginia looming on the horizon. Can't wait to see what's next!

Namaste!

Kaila Potts

Hello All and Welcome to the Second Annual Sphinx Chamber Orchestra Tour!

Launching a second year of its history-making tour, the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra is returning to the national spotlight in venues across the country including a return to Carnegie Hall on October 7, 2009.

The Sphinx Chamber Orchestra has begun its tour with two stops in Ohio just in the past few days and with a record number of stops coming up including:

9/15- E.J. Thomas Hall, University of Akron, OH

9/18- August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, PA

9/20- Oberlin College Artist Recital Series, Oberlin, OH

9/22- Bridgewater University, Bridgewater, VA

9/24- The Porter Center for Performing Arts, Brevard College, Brevard, NC

9/27- North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC

9/29- Kilbourne Concert Series, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY

10/2- Tri-Institutional Noon Recitals, Rockefeller University, New York, NY

10/5- Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA

10/7- Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

10/21- California State University, Chico, CA

10/24- Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, Cerritos, CA

Both the Toledo Blade and Beacon Journal featured the first tour stop at Bowling Green State University this past Sunday.

Last year, the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra along with the Harlem Quartet made a historic journey, marking the inaugural national tour in venues such as the Krannert Center, Detroit's Orchestra Hall, Harris Theatre and Carnegie Hall, reaching over 3,600 students during outreach sessions and concert audiences of 8,000. The tour garnered critical acclaim, including a rave review in The New York Times which described the performances as "passionate", "virtuosic", "excellent" and "elegant".

Drawn from alumni of the Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino string players, the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra Tour continues to create new opportunities for talented young musicians of color. Keep reading for important updates from musicians on the tour, behind the scenes stories, as well as news highlights in the upcoming weeks! You can also follow SCO on the road through our Twitter.

The Sphinx Chamber Orchestra Tour is made possible through a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Target is the National Sponsor of Musical Encounters-The Tour! providing educational engagement sessions at each SCO Tour stop. The Tour is managed in partnership with Sciolino Artist Management.

Hey girls and boys,

I feel very strange for doing this because I don't even do this in my own language. But I am going to give it my best. Please excuse my bad spellings sometimes. How did I get in to this? Hm, well, first I received a message on facebook from Afa urging and looking for players and I thought, wow, it's in the middle of the school year and I am going to miss classes. I thought it wasn't the best idea since this is my last year in school. I didn't think it much si I said to myself, "I am going to do it". This is a unique experience and thought it would expose me to wonderful experiences with great human beings.

I can't complain because, thanks to missing three and a half weeks of classes and lessons, for the first time ever I went to Carnegie Hall and performed with the most amazing players. As soon as I walked into Carnegie, the first thing I thought it was, "wow, we are about to perform where great musicians such as Heifetz, Oistrakh, Ricci, Anne-Sophia Muter, Leonard Bernstein and so on, performed once". I couldn't believe it. I couldn't stop thinking about it in the dress rehearsal. Anyways, Carnegie Hall was one of the most touching moments for me in the tour. And also because, despite of the unfortunate accident in Ohio, guess what, Janina was back in the second violin section ready to lead us. I thought that was the most courageus thing ever.

I have been learning so much from each one of the players for the past three weeks and have shared so many incredible experiences. We became indeed a family in the SCO tour and I feel very lucky to have been part of it. It was definitely worth it to miss all of that time of classes in school.

I wish everyone a great and succesful rest of the year. I hope to run into most of you around the globe because it is indeed a small world and you never know.

Thank you all for being super cool and talented.
Best of luck,
Sinceramente y con mucho amor,
Sandro

October 6, 2008
BY WYNNE DELACOMA
Local arts lovers had their pick of heavy hitters in downtown Chicago over the weekend. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed Sibelius and Shostakovich at Symphony Center, and the legendary Kirov Ballet danced "Giselle' at the Auditorium.
But there is something equally exhilarating in encountering young performers who might become tomorrow's heavy hitters. On Saturday night, the two dozen or so gifted young members of the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra made their Chicago debut in the Harris Theater with a lively program stretching from Vivaldi to Wynton Marsalis.
» Click to enlarge image

Violinist Clayton Penrose-Whitmore (right), of Evanston, performs with the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra.
(Courtesy)

Established in 2004, the string orchestra includes winners of competitions sponsored every year since 1996 by the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization. Sphinx is devoted to finding and helping promising Latino and black string players enter the professional classical music world, and some of its competition winners have done just that. Thanks in large part to Sphinx's efforts, the widely held perception that young people of color simply aren't interested in a life in classical music is slowly being laid to rest.
Judged simply on musical terms, the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra emerged as a top-notch ensemble Saturday night, playing with a tightly woven sound and palpable zest under conductor Chelsea Tipton II, resident conductor of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.
The program of short works showed off the young players' versatility. Mozart's D Major Divertimento, K. 136, had a nice bounce and bright sheen, while Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins and Orchestra in B Minor dug a little deeper. Soloists, including 15-year-old Clayton Penrose-Whitmore of Evanston, confidently tossed Vivaldi's melodic threads back and forth, listening intently to each other as they tore through the concerto's quick tempos.
There was a seductively dreamy quality to the fugue movement from Heitor Villa-Lobos' "Bachianas Brasileiras" No. 9. Sections of the orchestra came and went as if surrounded by a smoky haze, momentarily seizing the spotlight before melting away into unsettled harmonies or unpredictable melodic turns. George Walker's elegiac Lyric for Strings was both lush and delicately shaded.
The Harlem Quartet, made up of orchestra members Ilmar Gavilan, Melissa White, Miguel Hernandez and Desmond Neysmith, had great fun with "Hellbound Highball," the final, scherzo movement from Wynton Marsalis' String Quartet No. 1 ("At the Octoroon Balls"), a work from 1995.
Marsalis' music evokes the powerful trains of the early 20th century, and the four players hurled themselves into high-speed chases and grinding slowdowns, all punctuated with sharp, twanging whistles and queasy, swaying rhythms.
The concert closed with "Delights and Dances" for String Quartet and Orchestra by American composer Michael Abels. Aptly titled, it was a happy mix of mellow lyricism and outbursts of jaunty country fiddling.
Wynne Delacoma is a Chicago free-lance writer.

Our gang is in Germantown and I am back in MI from the tour briefly. Can't wait to rejoin the group and hear more of the amazing music and see the whole fam. I want to make sure our peeps have seen the amazing review in the Chicago Sun Times--this is amazing! The first formal review, and it could simply not be more glowing. Congrats to Chelsea and everyone: this is something of which to be truly proud, and it did not occur by magic. Your hard work and integrity are paying off. Much love to you, and I am going to post the article separately, so enjoy.

afa