LOU Youth Symphony and Oxford String Project Set Concert

The performance, set for 2 p.m. in Nutt Auditorium, is free and open to the public.

Ole Miss music professors Armee Hong, Kelsey Smith, Vincent Morreale and Selim Giray lead the Oxford String Project, which helps to build basic musical skills for beginning musicians in grades 3 through 6, and the LOU Youth Symphony, open to musicians in grades 7-12.

"I am pleased to watch them, not just in playing the violin or cello, but in life," Hong said. "It is exciting to watch them grow."

Oxford String Project participants can learn to play violin, viola, cello or bass. Sisters Juliet, Natalie and Elaina Bennett are first-year students in the program, all playing violin.

"I picked the violin because it was the smallest and easiest to carry," Natalie Bennett said.

Elaina Bennett noted that practicing with her sisters has proven helpful.

"The hardest thing for me was learning where the notes are on the strings," she said.

The ensemble's repertoire includes simple classical tunes that help the young students acquaint themselves with the instruments.

The LOU Youth Symphony allows students to develop their musical talents at a higher level. It includes a broader range of instruments – including strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion – and features more advanced compositions to show off the participants' growing musical skills.

The symphony's performance will feature the overture from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and Richard Rodgers' "Sound of Music Suite."

Quinn Hickerson, a senior from Oxford, plays strings in the symphony.

"I started playing all the way back in fourth or fifth grade with a private teacher," Hickerson said. "I haven't been to a lot of colleges, but this seems like a unique experience. I really treasure it."

Both the Oxford String Project and the LOU Youth Symphony Orchestra are sponsored by the UM Department of Music and the Office of Pre-College Programs. For more information on both programs, contact the Office of Pre-College Programs at precollege@olemiss.edu.

Top: Selim Giray (center), associate professor of music and director of orchestral studies, conducts the Oxford String Project in Nutt Auditorium, assisted by Kelsey Smith (right), instructor in cello. The ensemble allows students in grades 3-6 to learn to play violin, viola, cello or bass. Photo by Cameron Geranios