"What if you played the notes backwards?” a composer asks a bassist.
The latter thinks for a moment, then plays the passage in retrograde. Smiling, the composer then asks, “What if you played it upside down?” After furrowing his brow, the bassist plays the passage in inversion.
The composer poses a final challenge: “What if you played it upside down and backwards?”
The bassist runs his fingers over the fingerboard, figuring it out. He plays it in retrograde inversion.
“Yeah — that’s what I want.” Satisfied, the composer sits down, cross-legged.
This exchange took place in 2023, in a classroom at PS 199, a partner in the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers Program (VYC). The player was NY Phil bassist Satoshi Okamoto, the composer was 11-year-old Audrey Wolrich, and I was leading the class. The scene is emblematic of VYC’s collaboration among musicians, NY Phil Teaching Artists (TAs), and the enthusiastic New York City students with varying degrees of musical experience who are given a chance to express themselves. It’s only one of the NY Phil education initiatives that come together for the Young People’s Concerts (YPC) for Schools week, which I have the pleasure of hosting this year (February 5–7).
Those of us involved in producing these concerts hope the more than 9,000 students in the audience over six concerts experience a smooth, finished product, but there has been a lot going on behind the scenes in the run-up to them. Months ago, the NY Phil education team grappled with the season’s theme — in 2024–25, it’s various ways of completing the sentence "The Future Is …" — selecting repertoire (including works by a few VYC participants), and writing the script. The week of the concert is crunch time. I memorize the script, all interactions with the conductor, orchestral cues, and blocking. There’s one rehearsal with the Orchestra, lights, sound, and production staff. Then it’s showtime!
During my 28 seasons as a TA, I’ve been involved in many NY Phil education programs. The most famous is the 101-year-old YPC series, which I have occasionally hosted since 2018 — how exciting and nerve-racking it was to be invited to step into the shoes of Leonard Bernstein, the ultimate educator and one of the Orchestra’s most famous and charismatic past music directors. The series’s success led to the creation of YPCs for Schools, attended by students from across the New York tristate area, many of them prepared for the experience with a curriculum guide created by the NY Phil’s education team.
VYC has recently received attention through media accounts of performances on all the Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, beginning in 2018. The program was developed by VYC Founder and Director Emeritus (and former NY Phil Associate Principal Bass) Jon Deak, who worked with Bernstein personally, and has carried on his legacy of enthusiastically sharing the love of music in his own unique way.
Offstage, I am one of the many TAs who have worked in communities across New York City through Philharmonic Schools, which instructs about 2,000 elementary school students each year through a Philharmonic-created interdisciplinary curriculum that is customized for each classroom. (The program led to the creation of VYC as a local after-school program before it expanded across the country and internationally — the program has brought me to Japan nine times!)
The throughline in all Philharmonic education programs is prioritizing engagement before information, tapping the listener’s knowledge (not just musical!), and modeling musical concepts in multiple modalities. Today there are 25 NY Phil TAs building and expanding on those original concepts across New York City’s five boroughs. I have been proud to mentor several students whose pieces have ended up being performed in YPCs and in the Concerts in the Parks.
This month’s YPC and YPCs for Schools are titled "The Future Is Innovation," reflecting on Beethoven’s transformation of the orchestra and what contemporary composer Missy Mazzoli is doing today — as well as what might lie ahead, through a taste of a variety of VYC works. And questions surrounding innovation will continue to drive education at the Philharmonic, just as they have for more than 100 years. Will students embrace new augmented reality technology? Will AI bring Gustav Mahler back as a hologram conductor? Will new instruments be added to the orchestra, as happened during the lifetimes of Beethoven, Berlioz, and Boulez? What new paths will we explore after Gustavo Dudamel becomes Music and Artistic Director in 2026?
In the meantime, 11-year-old Audrey goes through the same process Beethoven did. What if I extend the rhythm? What if I chain together a rising variation of the theme into a sequence? What if …
Visit NYPhil.org.
