Among the local young people performing in the California Youth Symphony are (from left) Dana Nguyen, Kimberly Kanada and Jenny Yao, all of Monte Sereno, and Kevin Cho of Los Gatos. Not pictured is Los Gatan Carter Wallace.

Perfect Pitch

California Youth Symphony members hit all the right notes

By Shari Kaplan
Photographs by Paul Myers

'Spontaneous joy in music, in performing or listening, comes naturally to the young, and it is a privilege to feel its spark."

This praise came from the late Aaron Sten, who founded the California Youth Symphony in 1952 as the state's first independent youth orchestra. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, the CYS comprises more than 100 musicians from 40 Bay Area middle and high schools playing a complete orchestral repertoire of strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion.

Among those students are harpist Kimberly Kanada of Monte Sereno and bassoonist Sydney Larson of Saratoga, both of whom will be performing March 3 during a gala anniversary concert at Flint Center in Cupertino. The program consists of three symphonic pieces, including the world premiere of Tonescapes, composed by Maestro Leo Eylar, CYS's music director for the past 11 years.

Both Kimberly and Sydney have studied music for much of their young lives and both say that CYS will not be their final musical endeavor. Both girls also have chosen a path different from many of their fellow musicians--the playing of instruments that are large, challenging and uncommon.

Kimberly Kanada of Monte Sereno practices playing the lilting melodies of her concert grand harp for an upcoming performance with the California Youth Symphony.










Kimberly Kanada, Harpist

For Kimberly, music comes as naturally to her as speaking. "My mom plays the piano, so she began teaching me when I was very young--about 3," the Monte Sereno native says of her mother, Shirley, a retired teacher. "It was a basic education thing, sort of like being read to when you're little and being taught the alphabet and numbers before kindergarten."

By the age of 8, Kimberly had begun taking weekly piano lessons and enjoyed them right away. She says practicing was never a chore for her because her instructor and her mother encouraged her to learn pieces that she herself enjoyed; both women also frequently engaged the budding musician in duets.

A few years later, Kimberly and her parents attended a CYS concert, where she was enchanted with the sound of the harp and the movements of its player.

"The next day, by coincidence, my piano teacher asked me if I was interested in taking a second instrument," she recalls. "The attraction was the outward aesthetic appeal of the harp and how great it sounds. Sometimes, you have to compromise one of those aspects in an instrument, but with the harp, you get both."

She made her symphonic debut about five years ago, with the South Bay Youth Orchestra. For the past three years, she has been a member of the CYS, for which she practices at home four to six hours each week--not including the group's three-hour Sunday rehearsals.

"I love the harp because it's unique, challenging and beautiful. There are so many styles of harps available that you can buy one that fits your personality," Kimberly says.

After her parents realized how serious their daughter was about playing the harp, they bought her a gold Lyon & Healy Style 11 concert grand harp, with flowers hand-painted along the soundboard and an Art Nouveau-style column in front.

"One cannot walk into a showroom and buy a harp. New ones must be preordered. Good used ones are hard to come by," Shirley Kanada explains.

"It's very difficult to find harps for rent, especially pedal harps. So as soon as I realized she was good at it and meant to stick with it, I ordered her a semi-grand harp from Lyon & Healy in Chicago," adds Shirley of her daughter's first instrument, which was smaller than the concert grand harp Kimberly now plays.

What Kimberly likes best about playing the harp--aside from its beautiful appearance and sound--is the fact that it taught her how to do multiple tasks at once and how to be in the spotlight as a solo harpist.

"Playing makes me feel like I can accomplish anything; being in an orchestra was a challenge at first because I didn't really know what to do. Unlike the string sections or the brass players, we are often off on our own. We often do not have another harpist to follow along or back us up," she explains.

"Harpists also have to do so many things at once: watch the conductor, keep the time/beats, look at our music, watch our hands and fingering, change pedals with our feet and get all the right notes.

"Knowing that I surmounted these challenges is one of the greatest parts of playing in an orchestra," she adds.

As if these challenges weren't enough, Kimberly also finds time to play with the orchestra at Harker Academy, where she is a senior, as well as serve as coeditor of the Harker Herald newspaper, play on the girls' varsity soccer team, read and ski. She's not sure where she'll go to college, but says she's gravitating toward a major in the humanities or biology. And, of course, she'll always have her harp.


Saratogan Sydney Larson (above) takes a breather from practicing her bassoon, a large double-reed instrument she will play during an upcoming performance with the California Youth Symphony.




Sydney Larson, Bassoonist

A junior at Castilleja School in Palo Alto, Sydney has been a member of the CYS Senior Orchestra for the past four years; before that, she played in the Junior Orchestra for a year and in the CYS Wind Prep Ensemble before that. Her interest in wind instruments goes back much further, however.

"In the fifth grade, I decided that I wanted to join my fifth-grade school band," recalls the Saratoga resident, daughter of Douglas and Shonna Larson. "I just went onto the computer and used Encarta [research and reference software] to learn about musical instruments. I clicked on each one to learn about it and listen to it."

"I loved hearing the bassoon being played on Grieg's Pier Gynt Suite--there's a big bassoon solo at the beginning of it. I decided I wanted to play the bassoon!" she says.

And so she did. After Sydney became proficient on the tall, bulky instrument, her music teacher told her about the California Youth Symphony and encouraged her to try out for it. The Wind Prep Ensemble was Sydney's first taste of symphonic performing, and she liked it.

"I slowly moved up the steps, until I got to the Senior Orchestra," says Sydney, who also enjoys playing the piano, which she has studied for some 10 years.

What she says impressed her most about the members of the Senior Orchestra was that everyone seemed excited and proud to be there--they were not performing at this level simply to satisfy parental urgings.

"The bassoon has one of the widest ranges of all wind and brass instruments," says Sydney, who is one of three bassoonists in the CYS. Like Kimberly, Sydney also likes the fact that her instrument sets her apart from most of the other performers.

"In the bassoon world, everyone knows everyone else, because it [the players' circle] is so small," she says, chuckling.

"It's fun being different, rather than just being a face in the orchestra--one of dozens of people all playing the same instrument," she says. By this she refers to how most symphony orchestras, including the CYS, have a large number of musicians playing in the first violin, second violin and viola sections.

While she hasn't decided on a college yet, Sydney says she is considering a double major combining music with either genetics or economics. If she could attain her dream job, she says she would love to play bassoon on the soundtracks of movies or animated films.

"If you really listen, the bassoon is used a lot, especially in comical parts," she says of the instrument's rumbling sound when playing in its lower register. In the meantime, she's keeping busy with a full academic load at Castilleja, as well as a place on the school's girls' varsity tennis team.


Kimberly Kanada of Monte Sereno practices playing the lilting melodies of her concert grand harp for an upcoming performance with the California Youth Symphony.




In Retrospect

"There are so many of them who have gone into computer science, or engineering, but most of them still do music on the side. Only about 3 percent go professional, but a very large percentage stay involved with music in some way," says Helga Gladney of Saratoga, who first got involved with CYS when her daughter, Stephanie, now 30, joined as a teenage viola player.

Gladney liked the group and its goals so much that she has done publicity for it for the past 15 years. She also keeps in touch with as many CYS alumni as possible and keeps them apprised of alumni events, including one coming up July 28 at Stanford University.

"My daughter said it was the most challenging and the most rewarding thing she did in her high school years," she adds. "It teaches young people an incredible amount of teamwork and discipline. If somebody doesn't do their part, it lets the whole group down--but I can't recall that ever happening!"

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Tickets for the March 3 concert are $12 for general admission and $6 for students and senior citizens. Flint Center is located at 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd., on the De Anza College campus. For tickets or more information, call 650.325.6666 or visit www.cys.org on the web.

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