For eleven days this summer, the Choate Symphony Orchestra will perform in Italy and learn about the country’s rich culture. Members of the music department and orchestra students have been desperately awaiting this — especially since the cancellation of last year’s tour. The most recent international tour took place in 2016.
Mr. Phil Ventre, Director of the Orchestral and Jazz ensembles, has planned numerous international and domestic tours for his students. “The Choate Orchestra has presented concert tours many times in historic cathedrals, in renowned concert halls, music conservatories in twelve European countries, and many more. This year’s tour is especially more meaningful because the Choate Orchestra presented its first concert tour in Italy in 1995.”
The Symphony Orchestra will leave the country on June 1 and return on June 11. Throughout the tour, students will learn about Italy’s history of music, art, architecture, and literature. In addition, the group will be performing masterworks in historic concert venues in Rome, Florence, Cremona and Venice. They plan to perform Hector Berlioz’s Carnival Overture and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto, featuring Kaki Jiaqi Su ’19.
William Robertson ’20, a cellist in Symphony Orchestra, showed his enthusiasm: “I feel so incredibly blessed and lucky to be part of this tour. As someone who is from a fairly small and rural town, if you had told me five years ago that I would be touring Italy with a symphony orchestra, I would have laughed at you — yet, here we are!” He continues, “I am most excited about the fact that we will be playing a lot of Italian music in Italy. In orchestra, we play pieces from all over the globe, but it is really rare that we get to perform these masterpieces in the places of which these pieces were inspired. This tour means something bigger than a bunch of teenagers playing hunks of wood with horsehair — the stuff we are playing is not easy. Every one of us has struggled and practiced to get to the point we are not, and we get to share this experience together, performing and enjoying the music as a group.”
Ethan Luk ’20, the co-principal of the Choate Orchestra, also showed his eagerness: “I hope I will get to fully immerse myself in the Italian culture and history. Italy has produced so much amazing classical music and I want to understand the history of music making in Italy. I am most excited about our trip to Cremona because Stradivarius violins were made there.”
The June 2019 concert tour will be a special moment for the Choate Orchestra musicians. Mr. Ventre and all the faculty members that planned this trip hope that the tour will not only help students grow as musicians but also fill student lives with cherished memories.
