On April 30, Homer OPUS presents Strings in the Stacks. This is the organization's last formal concert of the school year. The Homer Youth String Orchestra Club Scherzos (SKERT-ZOS) and Codas, the adult string orchestra group, will present music featuring fiddle tunes to Baroque classics. Youth Coordinator Elizabeth White shared other details about what the Coda’s will share:
“They are going to be playing Corelli's Christmas concerto, which we have been working on since November, and it's sounding really good, and we're so excited. This was a lot of work. We're really excited to premiere it. And then we're going to end with “all about that bass.” Judah is a bass player in CODAs, and she is graduating from high school, so this is a little feature for her, and we'll bring the Scherzos back on to play with us for that, it should be really fun,” White said.
White has been working with Homer Opus for a year and talked about her personal musical background and what she brings to the program:
“I have a doctorate in Viola performance, and I think when I started going to school and I kind of fell into teaching, and I really loved it. I taught for a couple years in Utah, where I was teaching violins in the schools, kind of like here, and then my husband went to do his doctorate in Arizona. So I was teaching general music down there for five years, for K through eight, and then I kind of just led to us looking for things where I wanted to really teach violin and strings again, and that led us here,” White said.
Homer OPUS was officially incorporated in 2019 but some parts of the program are much older. The K2 program that started at Paul Banks will hold its 10th anniversary next year. The Homer Youth String Orchestra Club (HYSOC) has been functional for almost 20 years. White says that as she understands it, HYSOC was formed by community members who wanted to find a way for string players to have a local group since they were not a part of the schools.
The organization has a few additional community events coming up in May. On May 11th, the CODAS will be playing at Grace Ridge Brewery from 6-7 pm and on May 12th the youth group will be playing at Bubbles on Pioneer Avenue from 3 and 7 pm.
Strings in the Stacks takes place April 30th at Homer Public Library starting at 6 pm.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
