VYOA News & Updates

Dante Letzelter, viola
Northeast Kingdom Learning Services

VT Youth Orchestra – 3 years
VT Youth Philharmonia – 2 years

How did you choose your instrument over all of the others?
I actually started many years ago on violin. But we had a viola in my home that no one was using. Not being one to neglect instruments, I decided to play that instead. I immediately fell in love with mid range of the viola.

What do you enjoy most about playing in an orchestra?
I love hearing all the parts come together to make one voice, and the best thing is when you hear a part you haven’t heard before. It can be hard to hear what everyone is playing, especially when you sit in front of the trumpets.

What has been your biggest musical breakthrough?
Learning how to learn music by hearing it.

What advice would you give to younger music students as they strive to build their skills?
Play along with recordings of what you’re playing helps a ton. If you’re having a lot of trouble with a certain part of a piece, take a break from practicing it and play something else. Come back to it in a day or two.

What kinds of changes would you like to see in the orchestral world?
I think school music programs can always use more! Especially out where I live, school music programs could use support. It would also be quite something to hear an orchestra perform a disco piece.

What is your favorite VYOA memory?
At the first Reveille [the season kick-off rehearsals for VYO and VYP] I attended, a brass band comprised of the VYO brass and percussion sections paraded out of the men’s bathroom and around Elley-Long.

Apart from orchestral music, what other kinds of music do you listen to? Do other genres influence what you hear in orchestral music?
I listen to all different kinds of music, anything from Klezmer to Hip-Hop, I’ll give it a listen. I am always hearing parts of pieces and songs in other pieces and songs.

What other activities do you participate in?
I sing in a small singing group nearby my home, and I play Trombone in two local brass bands. I also work in the woods tapping trees for sugaring season.

If you know, what do you plan to study in college?
Education, a trade, and music/art are the top contenders right now, but that could change.

SEBASTIAAN WEST is a senior at Mount Mansfield Union High School, who began studying piano at age 5 in the Netherlands. Currently a student of Paul Orgel, Mr. West has performed with Burlington Chamber Orchestra, Vermont All State Music Festival, Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival and is a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra. Alongside his classical accomplishments, Sebastiaan leads a youth jazz combo, plays Irish button accordion with Young Tradition Vermont, and was the band leader for Fairfax Community Theater’s production of ‘Beehive: The 60s Musical.’

Sebastiaan is one of three concerto competition winners this season. Mr. West will perform the festive first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 this Sunday, January 20, 2019 at 3pm in the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. Learn more.

CLEO FLEMMING received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Psychology from the University of Vermont where she studied with cellist Suzanne Polk. Throughout her undergraduate studies she was the cellist of the Redstone String Quartet and a member of the UVM Symphony Orchestra, where she performed in the annual UVM Concerto Competition in 2017. Cleo is a long standing participant of Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and has attended Allegro Vivo, an international chamber music festival in Austria. As a freelance cellist, Cleo has worked for multiple musical theatre productions for FlynnSpace, Stowe Theatre Guild and UVM including FlynnSpace’s off-Broadway production of Fun Home, and the Flynn Summer Youth Theatre Program. She has worked closely with composer and director Randal Pierce on his original work for children’s theatre and has the privilege collaborating with many talented Burlington songwriters, including Honey and Soul, Francesca Blanchard, and Myra Flynn.

As a teacher, Cleo has instructed the after school cello program at Edmund’s School and held a private studio through the Burlington Music Dojo. Cleo organizes her lessons to emphasize the student’s personal musical growth through the style to which they feel most connected, all while deepening an understanding of music theory and practical technique. When she’s not teaching, you can find her at home with her wacky cat, Banana, or out and about making coffee for the vibrant folks of Burlington, Vermont!

We’re thrilled Ms. Flemming has joined our lesson program faculty and is accepting new students.

PATRICIA JANCOVA received a Master of Music degree in violin performance from Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music where she studied with renowned violinist/violist and pedagogue, Laura Bossert. During her graduate studies, she played both violin and viola at Setnor as well as for chamber music festivals LyricaFest and Festival Baltimore. While completing her undergraduate degree at the Frost School of Music, Miss Jancova studied abroad at the prestigious Sydney Conservatorium, where she was a student of Alice Waten. Miss Jancova has played in numerous ensembles including the Binghamton Philharmonic, Miami Lyric Opera, the New England Symphonic Ensemble, Philadelphia Sinfonia, the Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, the Lyrica-Boston Chamber Orchestra, and the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra. Versed in a wide range of musical styles, she has also had the privilege of performing with artists including Mark O’Connor, Bobby McFerrin, George Benson, Chick Corea, Gloria Estefan, and Dawn Upshaw.

As an educator, Miss Jancova has worked with students from the onset of their musical training to the pre-professional level at the Florida Youth Orchestra, the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, the Syracuse Youth Orchestra, and as a Teaching Assistant for the music outreach program at the University of Miami. Her teaching style is a conglomerate influenced by several different pedagogues and schools including the O’Connor and Suzuki methods. Miss Jancova hopes to help VYOA musicians find their unique musical voice, to develop proper technique on their instruments, to hone personal skills such as responsibility and self-motivation, and to foster a general love of music and music-making in their lives.

Greta Hardy-Mittell, clarinet

Middlebury Union High
VT Youth Orchestra – 3 years
VT Youth Philharmonia – 1 year

What do you love about being in an orchestra?
Orchestra is my favorite part of playing clarinet. It is such an ensemble experience, with a rich texture combining all the sounds of almost every classical instrument, but its clarinet parts are also individually so much fun! Playing orchestra music sends chills down my back because it’s so beautiful.

What role has the VYOA played in your musical career?
Without the VYOA, I don’t think I’d be the musician I am today. I probably wouldn’t have done so many festivals, I might not even have taken private clarinet lessons, and I certainly wouldn’t have played so much fantastic repertoire! VYO proved to me that I am a good clarinetist, along with introducing me to perhaps my favorite type of classical music.

What would you like to change in the orchestral world?
More representation of women and people of color! I have yet to have had an orchestra conductor who is not a white or Asian man, and I would especially love to one day have a woman conductor, being a girl who might be interested in conducting at some point in my life.

What has been your most inspiring or memorable musical experience?
Along those lines: in All States my freshman year, our band conductor was a woman whom I really looked up to and enjoyed working with. On the last day of the festival, she arranged the band in a circle and invited students into the middle to look at the score and conduct. Little freshman me, shy but eager, raised her hand and walked into the middle, trembling. The experience of standing there with a fantastic ensemble playing all around me will never leave me, and it certainly pushed me forward to keep pursuing music in ensembles and improving at the clarinet throughout my next three years of high school.

What is your favorite VYOA memory?
Probably the day when Dr. Cumming (2016-17 Interim VYO Conductor) decided to take about half of rehearsal to tell us about his experiences with Tom Hanks and Yo Yo Ma! We all just sat there in awe and looked at each other like, is this guy for real? Is this guy really our orchestra conductor? And he was!

Apart from orchestral music, what other kind of music do you love?
Piano repertoire (obviously), especially romantic pieces. I also love jazz, funk, indie/folk/pop, 80s stuff, and musicals!

What other activities do you participate in?
Too many! I love to write creatively, play scholar’s bowl, and run cross country, to name a few.

If you already know, what college or university do you plan to attend next year?
Carleton College, in Northfield, Minnesota!

What do you plan to study in college?
Maybe Environmental Studies, English, or Linguistics, or maybe something completely different that I haven’t even taken a class in yet. I definitely plan to keep playing music, too, especially solo piano and, you got it, orchestra!