With the help of a Spark Grant from Wyoming Humanities, the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra is hosting another Youth Educational Symphony “YES!” Program on January 30, 2025. Cheyenne Symphony’s “YES!” (Youth Educational Symphony) concerts are the largest piece of CSO’s educational outreach under the Giving the Gift of Music umbrella. Before the event, music teachers are provided with a video curriculum created by CSO to prepare their students for this educational experience. The free annual concerts serve nearly 3,000 students.
“YES!” concerts focus on creating valuable connections between history, cultural literacy, and music appreciation, as well as introduce the basics of symphony orchestras and concert etiquette. During the concert, the Maestro and musicians teach about the music, instruments, and tell stories about careers in music.
Students attend in both 5th and 6th grade, so CSO strives to provide exposure to a range of composers and styles with one year of strictly classical repertoire and the second year of popular movie music. This year, CSO will provide a behind-the-scenes film with live orchestra experience with How to Train Your Dragon in Concert for students to learn how music is added to film, the different types of technology used, and the types of career paths that come together to make a production like this possible.
CSO is very proud to provide these 5th-6th grade targeted concerts free of charge to students in Laramie County School Districts (LCSD) #1 and #2, parochial, private, and home-schooled children. Junior high and high school orchestra students from LCSD #1 also attend. The “YES!” concert program this season, How to Train Your Dragon in Concert, will be on January 30, 2025, at 9:30 am and 1:00 pm at the Cheyenne Civic Center.