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Two of Florida’s top music organizations — the South Florida Youth Symphony (SFYS.net) and the Miami Dade College Orchestra — have captured a prestigious Regional Suncoast Emmy Award for their most recent virtual concert.
The announcement — done virtually — was made in mid-December.
Under the direction of SFYS executive and music director Marjorie Hahn and Miami Dade Orchestra’s Albert Bade, the two organizations performed Brian Neal’s Concertante, along with international students from Spain and Panama.
“This was our third virtual concert because of the pandemic, and it was an outstanding effort by students from both organizations. Kudos to Brian Neal for this composition and Albert Bade and Miami Dade College for their expertise and technical production,” Hahn said. “Everyone, including our musical friends from around the world, worked extremely hard under very trying circumstances and should be proud of their accomplishment. Very few people can say they won an Emmy.”
The SFYS is one of the nation’s leading youth music organizations. In recent years the group won a Gold Medal at the prestigious Heritage Music Festival in Washington, DC in 2017; performed at Carnegie Hall in 2018, and captured Gold at the Young Bohemian 2019 Music Festival in Prague, Czech Republic.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the SFYS switched from its usual weekly live practice sessions at Miami Dade College-North to weekly Zoom practice sessions.
“Obviously, the students want to perform live,” Hahn said, noting that a trip to Uruguay and Argentina planned for early March had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. “But we emphasized to them — through all the Zoom practices — that the important thing was their music and the joy it brought to thousands of people who saw and heard it online. Now, as if to reinforce what I and the other instructors said, they have won an Emmy.”
For more information on the South Florida Youth Symphony — which is inviting talented young musicians to audition —v isit SYFS.net, send email to MakeMusic@sfys.net or call 305-238-2729.
