Peterson Conservatory of Music and Arts

From the director to all interested players:

Hello friends-

Mt Baker Youth Symphony and Fidalgo Youth Symphony, performing as the North Stars Chamber Orchestra, have been invited to be one of four featured youth symphonies from around the world to perform at the Dvorak Festival in Prague on June 29, 2016!!

Several of you have expressed real interest in going, so Mr. Peterson and I are starting the serious recruiting NOW! We need to have 20 players committed by March, so even if you are already in college or university, please alert your fellow musicians to this tour. They can email me at sharynpeterson@hotmail.com.

We received the invitation based on two videos I sent their team: Dvorak New World last movement, from FYS Spring Concert 2014, and Jupiter from Holst's Planets, which MBYS/FYS played jointly in McIntyre Hall. The MCI organization is very selective, and it is a significant honor to be invited to play at this concert! Other youth symphonies will do the tour, but won't be allowed to perform at this particular featured concert. Our group would play a piece by Dvorak, or a Beethoven selection.

We also want to do a trip to Vienna, Austria, added to the days in Prague. If we get enough people we can even add the two more nights in Vienna and Budapest! Two other concerts are also possible on this tour.

It is a fairly pricey tour, because the cities to be visited are more expensive, so we plan a series of benefit concerts this fall and winter, to help your finances. The more players and chaperones who go on the tour, the cheaper it will be for everyone. Proceeds from the benefit concerts would be shared equally by those playing in them.

It would also be a wonderful boon to have each player start up their own gofund me campaign online. Some of our Lisbon tour players had good success with this method!

Adult chaperones are needed, so please consider going! Airfare will be our own responsibility, as in Portugal trip, so there is flexibility for other touring in Europe after the Concert tour ends.

I hope to hear from you very soon, even if you are just remotely interested!

Mrs. Peterson

Call me at or email me at