Fox Valley Philharmonic Orchestra welcomes new director of music; auditions set for Sept. 15
The Fox Valley Philharmonic Orchestra will offer auditions for wind, string, and percussion.
The auditions will be Saturday, Sept. 15, at Our Savior Lutheran Church, 420 W. Downer Place, Aurora.
Members must be 16 years of age or older, with college students and community membership encouraged.
The Winds and Percussion auditions will be held from 9 to 10:30 a.m.
The String auditions will be from 10:30 a.m. to noon.
Be prepared to perform a selection of your choice. There will be sight reading of selected orchestral excerpts. Participants should be prepared to play major scales or Illinois Music Education Association-selected scales of major and minor.
There is no need to make reservations. If you are unable to make these audition dates, contact John Norton at Jenort.wdwd@att.net. Alternate auditions would be at 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept 23.
Rehearsals are held at Eden's Supportive Living, 300 Lincolnway (Route 31) in Aurora.
Rehearsal times are from 7 to 9 p.m. Sundays, from Oct. 16 to April 14.
The Fox Valley Philharmonic has a new music director, Stephen Thurlow. Thurlow retired in 2016 as the department chairman of music at Aurora's Marmion Academy, a position he held since 1984. He has a broad base of experience in musical composition as well as in directing concert band, marching band, jazz ensemble, chorus, and musicals. His conducting experiences have included conducting the I.M.E.A. District 7 jazz ensemble on two occasions, semi-professional stage performances in Naperville's Summer Place, and the Aurora All-city Jazz Ensemble. Teaching experiences include teaching horn at North Central College and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and Aurora's multi-cultural musical exploration program. He has performed horn in numerous Chicago area orchestras and ensembles, including principal horn for the Fox River Valley Symphony from 1986 to 1991, the College of DuPage New Philharmonic, the Wheaton Summer Symphony and Summer Band.
Thurlow is a member of the American School Band Director Association and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned a bachelor's degree in instrumental music education and a master's degree in applied horn. He continued his education in post-graduate work at Yale University in Applied Horn under Paul Ingraham, and continued for multiple years studying with Helen Hirsch, former principal horn of the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera. In Class A competition, his band received first division ratings in their last 16 Illinois High School Association Large Group competitions. In their division, Marmion-Rosary won the Northshore Jazz Festival twice, and Jazz in the Meadows three times during Thurlow's direction.
Thurlow has a production company under Thurlow Productions LLC. His current catalogue of compositions includes a piano sonata, string quartet, octet for strings and winds, as well as the opera "The Wall and the Rose." The opera, produced under DS Productions and Dan Solberg, will be recorded in Atlanta this fall. Selections of compositions can be found at www.thurlowproductions.com.