UC's Junior Strings Spread Their Wings in Chicago Date: April 28, 2000 By: Carrie Throm Phone: (513) 556-9485 Archive: General News For 20 years the Cincinnati Junior Strings orchestra (CJS), a flagship program of the Preparatory Department of UC's prestigious College-Conservatory of Music, has given an annual tour of note to Cincinnati schools. To commemorate its millennium season, the CJS family has been invited to expand the scope of its school tour to the Chicago area May 11-14. So the usual carpool procession of budding musicians will be replaced by a caravan of buses as the CJS heads to Chicago to spread its musical message to young audiences. Whether in Cincinnati or Chicago, the purpose of the CJS performances is the same: to illustrate that playing a stringed instrument is fun, satisfying and leads to a lifetime filled with the joys of music. With 50 members ranging in age from 9 to 15, CJS rehearses every Sunday as part of the Preparatory Department's broad offerings in music instruction. Since 1980 CJS has been invited to perform, inform, recruit and entertain in some 85 schools in southwest Ohio, northern Kentucky and eastern Indiana. Two or three Cincinnati area school systems are selected annually from a long list of requests. CJS musicians then perform three or four concerts at these schools, travelling to their destinations with parents and directors in a long carpool procession. Concerts are designed to get audiences involved through musical response, guided listening or informational demonstrations. In some cases the outcome is simply a much-appreciated live music lesson for young students by young students. In others, the outcome is increased enrollment in existing string programs. In still others, where no music program exists, a new one is born. While in Chicago, the CJS will be hosted by the Naperville Strings. (Naperville is a suburb of Chicago.) The full weekend will include a 'live-in' with the families of Naperville string students, a clinic/concert by CJS staff members, a joint rehearsal by the combined orchestras (nearly 100 string players) and a formal evening performance by Cincinnati Junior Strings. CJS members will also visit the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's interactive music center. At the center, called ECHO, they will see how music is composed and performed, how music is used to celebrate important occasions, and how the teamwork involved in making great music is an analogy for many other aspects of life. The young musicians will round out their trip by exploring the William Harris Lee string instrument construction laboratories. The 2000 Cincinnati Junior Strings School Tour will be led by Gerald Doan, CCM professor of music education, the group's music director; Susan Milligan of the Princeton Schools (CJS associate director); and Rachel Zieber of the Loveland Schools. They are also accompanied by nearly thirty parent assistants. Cincinnati Junior Strings, a teaching-performing orchestra for students in grades nine or below who play violin, viola, cello or string bass, is designed to augment and cooperate with area public school string programs in training young players. In addition to its annual school tours and concert schedule, the ensemble regularly appears by invitation at state and national conventions for music teachers. The young musicians have also performed on tours to Ireland, England, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Malaysia.