The Philharmonic Orchestra Performs in a Concert Featuring Violin Soloists Saarthak Shankavaram & An-Po Chen!
The San Jose Youth Symphony’s Philharmonic Orchestra, under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Yair Samet, presents its 2024-25 Season Finale Concert to be held on Saturday, June 7th, 2024, 2 pm, at the California Theatre, 345 S. 1st Street, San Jose, CA 95113.
This premier orchestra, made up of the most advanced students in the San Jose Youth Symphony, will open the concert with George Gershwin’s Funny Face Overture, from his musical, Funny Face, which featured Fred Astaire on Broadway, dancing for the first time in top hat and tails.
Featuring orchestra violinists as soloists — Saarthak Shankavaram & An-Po Chen — the orchestra will perform Sarasate’s virtuosic Navarra for Two Violins and Orchestra, a work inspired by Sarasate’s birthplace in the Navarre region of Spain. And then the concert will close with Beethoven‘s most well-known and dramatic works, his Fifth Symphony!
This is a great treat for the whole family!
Saarthak Shankavaram, Associate Concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra, is a junior at Prospect High School and has been playing violin since the age of 9. He has served as Concertmaster of String and Chamber Orchestras at his high school since his freshman year, and has been a member of the San Jose Youth Symphony for the past four years. He has also won first prize in both the Chamber Orchestra’s Concerto Competition in 2021 and the Philharmonic Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition in 2022.
An-Po Chen, Concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra, has been with the San Jose Youth Symphony since 2022. Now a senior at Archbishop Mitty High School, An-Po is currently studying violin, conducting and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College Academy. An avid chamber musician, his octet, which he led as 1st violinist, was named Ensemble Winner at Indiana University’s 2024 Final Gala Concert. He has also performed as a soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra as a winner of that orchestra’s Young Artist Competition in 2022.
The San Jose Youth Symphony (SJYS) is one of the oldest and finest youth orchestras on the West Coast of the U.S. Founded over seven decades ago as part of the former San Jose Symphony, SJYS has a rich tradition of musical performance and education.
The musicians of SJYS, all school-age youth, are chosen from more than 650 applicants through our annual auditions. The SJYS comprises 13 distinct performing ensembles: two full orchestras, a Chamber orchestra, two flute choirs, two string ensembles, as well as concert winds, brass, harp, saxophone, percussion and jazz ensembles.