Congratulations and welcome to Intermezzo 2025-2026!
Dear Musicians,
I am thrilled to welcome you all to BYSO’s Intermezzo Ensemble. My hope this season is that the students grow as musicians, deepen their love for rehearsing and performing, and gain a new community of string friends. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me at intermezzo@byso.org. I look forward to seeing all the students and and making music together on September 23th!
I can’t wait to meet parents and guardians tomorrow on September 15th at our BYSO parent meeting night, we will all meet together as a big group with all BYSO staff and musician parents and then we will break into just our orchestra.
Please plan to bring a pencil and your music in a folder or binder to the first rehearsal and label everything! * a note on binders – please do not have music put into protection sheets if it is in a binder. They will not be able to easily mark their music, just hole punched and popped in the binder is great!
Don’t worry, we’re a big group, so I’ll have seats assigned to help you find your spot.
My dog is a 80 pound goldendoodle named Finchley, after a street I lived near in London, England. He loves to swim and fetch! You might want to remember his name or something about him for the first rehearsal! 🙂
Things you can do to feel more confident at our first rehearsal:
- Print out your music when it’s becomes available
- Look over the music and practice it before coming to rehearsal
- Mental Practice/Preparation: Listen to recordings of the music on youtube to hear what the pieces sound like…even better if you can follow along with the music. You are NOT expected to know your music perfectly the first night!
- Find out what key each piece is in and try to play a scale in that key.
- Look for anything you don’t recognize or might have a question about and ask about them in rehearsal or with your private teacher.
Songs for Fall 2025:
- Sleepers Wake
- Allemande
- Dance of the Tumblers
- Fantasia on an Original Theme (all violas play the “solo” part at the beginning
Please make sure to check the violin seating assignments when printing out music for violin I or violin II
Next up:
- September 23 – First Rehearsal!
- October 11 – Fall Retreat (9am-noon)
- October 14 – Seating Auditions at our Tuesday Rehearsal
A quick word on seating auditions:
I would like all students to audition regardless of if they are wanting to be considered for principal seating, this helps them continue to develop audition skills and gives us a snapshot in time of their playing and how to progress and tailor rehearsals for them. There will be no make up of seating auditions if a student is absent on the date of seating auditions. If they happen to be gone, they can always audition for seating in the next quarter.
Some helpful tools:
- Tuner
- Video instructions for “HOW” to tune: fine-tuners or pegs
- Metronome
See you on Monday 9/15 for parent meeting and then on Tuesday, 9/23 for first rehearsal!
Best and happy practicing,
Stephanie Hellekson
