Greenwich Village Orchestra Announces 2018-2019 Season Concerts

The Greenwich Village Orchestra (GVO) announces its 2018-2019 season concerts, led by Music Director Barbara Yahr. Now in its 32nd season, the GVO is committed to making music at the highest possible level and enriching the lives of both players and audience through emotionally charged, exhilarating performances. All concerts of the 2018-2019 season will take place at All Saints Church (230 East 60th Street, NYC) unless otherwise noted.

Music Director Barbara Yahr says, "It is my great pleasure to announce the Greenwich Village Orchestra's 32nd Season! I am excited about our programs, about our line-up of internationally acclaimed soloists, and about performing in a new venue. We're thrilled to be performing at All Saints Church this season as our regular hall undergoes further improvements. I hope to see you this fall!"

The 2018-2019 season opens with Masters Of Lyricism on Sunday, October 14, 2018 at 3:00pm at All Saints Church. The program features works by master songwriters Barber and Schubert, including Barber's spirited Overture to The School for Scandal and his evocative setting of James Agee's poem Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with soprano soloist Rebecca Farley. The orchestra sings in Schubert's Ninth Symphony, "The Great."

On Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 3:00pm at All Saints Church, GVO performs Concerti Per Tutti, an ensemble-focused program featuring the Lysander Piano Trio (Itamar Zorman, Liza Stepanova, Michael Katz) in Beethoven's lyrical Triple Concerto. The orchestra itself becomes the soloist in Bartók's poignant Concerto for Orchestra.

GVO performs its annual Family Concert on Sunday, December 16, 2018 at 3:00pm at All Saints Church, titled All in the Family. The fifty-minute program includes Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals and is designed to delight children and adults alike.

The season continues on Sunday, February 24, 2019 at 3:00pm at All Saints Church with Eastern Romance. Violinist Ming-Feng Hsin, a longtime member of the MET Orchestra, leads the GVO in Dvo?ák's moving Romance and plays the elegant solo in Glazunov's Violin Concerto. The concert concludes with Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3.

On Friday, March 15, 2019 at 7:30pm, the GVO presents its annual Chamber Music Concert at the Tenri Cultural Institute (43A West 13th St., NYC).

Orchestral Brilliance on Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 3:00pm at All Saints Church explores the full range of what a modern orchestra can be. GVO Assistant Conductor Eric Mahl leads Debussy's impressionistic Nocturnes, then New York Philharmonic bass trombonist George Curran joins the orchestra as soloist in Chris Brubeck's Prague Concerto. The concert closes with Richard Strauss's lush, romantic Suite from Der Rosenkavalier.

To close the season, GVO explores visions of our shared cosmos with The Earth In Context on Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 3:00pm at All Saints Church. Copland's Quiet City, featuring principal trumpet Phil Parsons and English hornist Jason Smoller, reflects the inner life of the urban soul. Holst's The Planets captures the universal.

The GVO was founded in 1986 by a group of musicians from the New York Metropolitan area. The 70-member community orchestra is made up of accountants, actors, artists, attorneys, carpenters, editors, physicians, professors, photographers, computer programmers, retirees, scientists, students, and teachers, among others. Now in it's 32nd season, the GVO is committed to making music at the highest possible level and enriching the lives of both players and audience through emotionally charged, exhilarating performances.

The GVO regularly performs with internationally acclaimed soloists. In recent years, the orchestra has performed alongside soloists such as violinists Andrés Cárdenes, Itamar Zorman, and Hye-Jin Kim; cellists Edward Arron, Raman Ramakrishnan, David Heiss, and Brook Speltz; soprano Christine Goerke; mezzo-sopranos Jennifer Johnson Cano and Naomi O'Connell; baritone Jesse Blumberg; trumpet soloist Brandon Ridenour; and more.

Now in her seventeenth season with the GVO, Music Director Barbara Yahr continues to lead the orchestra to new levels of distinction. With blockbuster programming and internationally renowned guest artists, the GVO under Barbara's baton, has grown into an innovative, collaborative institution offering a full season of classical music to our local community.

A native of New York, Yahr's career has spanned from the United States to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Her previous posts include Principal Guest Conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, Resident Staff Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony under Maestro Lorin Maazel and conductor of the Pittsburgh Youth Orchestra. She has appeared as a guest conductor with such orchestras as the Bayerische Rundfunk, Dusseldorf Symphoniker, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Frankfurt Radio, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Janacek Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony, and the National Symphony in Washington D.C. She has also conducted the orchestra in Anchorage, Calgary, Chattanooga, Columbus, Detroit, Flint, Louisiana, New Mexico, Lubbock, Richmond as well as the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber, Rochester Philharmonic, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony and the Chautauqua Festival Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared in Israel conducting in both Jerusalem and Elat and as an opera conductor, has led new productions in Frankfurt, Giessen, Tulsa, Cincinnati, Minnesota and at The Mannes School of Music in NYC. She has coached the actors on the set of the Amazon Series, Mozart in the Jungle, and last season, conducted the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Yahr is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Middlebury College where she studied piano and philosophy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Conducting from the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Max Rudolf and an MM in Music Theory from the Manhattan School of Music. She was a student of Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School in Hancock, Maine.

Yahr's commitment to finding new ways to reach a broader population with music ultimately led her into the field of music therapy. She is a Board Certified Music Therapist, with an MA in music therapy from NYU and post-graduate certification from the world-renowned Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy in New York City. Her pioneering, community music therapy project, Together in Music, brings orchestral music to the special needs community with uniquely interactive programs. Barbara is married to Alex Lerman and has two adult step-children, Abe and Dania, and a 16 year-old son, Ben.