Music education in Sedona and the Verde Valley is getting a substantial boost with the founding of the Sedona Community Youth Orchestra by music teachers Kristina Beachell and Courtney Yeates in collaboration with Chamber Music Sedona. The orchestra’s senior players will make an appearance with the Sedona Symphony during its upcoming concert on Sunday, April 7, performing Gabriel Faure’s Pavane in F Sharp Minor.

“We both taught. She taught at Red Rock High, I taught here at the charter school,” Beachell said after rehearsal on Saturday, March 30. A violinist, she founded the strings program at the Sedona Charter School. After both left their school positions, Beachell added, “the kids weren’t getting quite the same orchestral experience in the schools that they were when we were collaborating, so we decided to do something else to provide that experience for the kids … We have students coming from Red Rock High, from Mingus, from Prescott, from Flagstaff, charter school, West Sedona School.”

“You know how there’s school sports and then there’s club sports?” Yeates, who plays cello with the Sedona Symphony, illustrated. “Think of this as like club orchestra. You take from everywhere and it’s a really focused, serious group.”

The SCYO has 10 players in the junior section, the Prelude Orchestra, and 16 in the senior section, the Concert Orchestra. The junior group rehearses Saturdays for an hour, while the senior group practices for two hours. At the moment the orchestra is purely a string ensemble.

Adding winds and brass in the future “would be the dream,” Yeates said. “But right now, you have to have a pretty robust string section before you start adding winds.”

“Unfortunately there’s no feeder program in the area for winds, so not a lot of kids play wind and brass because they don’t offer it in schools,” Beachell said.

Chamber Music Sedona

“We’ve had this great relationship with Chamber Music Sedona,” Yeates explained. “Now that we’ve gotten started with this project, this is the thing that they are so happy to support with music education in their endeavors. This is kind of really their pet project. They take music into the schools, they support the teachers.”

“They’re helping to fund it to keep the tuition to participate in this very, very low for the families,” Beachell said. “That’s kind of their role, the financial side of things.”

“The educational side of what we do at Chamber Music Sedona is one of the most important parts of our mission,” CMS Artistic Director Nick Canellakis said. “It’s not just to put on great concerts, but also to reach out to the local schools and work with the music programs that are already in place … whether it’s doing concerts for youth, or going into the schools and giving master classes, or working with the students on a one-on-one basis.”

In addition to supporting the youth orchestra and school music programs, CMS helps underwrite the cost of private lessons for local music students and provides complimentary tickets. CMS has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arizona Commission on the Arts because its music education program targets what the NEA considers an underserved community. The Arizona Community Foundation, the Burton Family Foundation and Classics for Kids are also underwriting part of the costs of the music outreach program, and CMS is trying to set up a local donation pathway.

“We also have invited the students on a couple of occasions to observe the artists that I bring,” Canellakis said. “In February, we did an open rehearsal with the professional musicians that were in town for the concert. When Courtney was done with her morning rehearsal, she brought all those students to the performing arts center and they witnessed my professional musicians doing a rehearsal. Then we had a big Q&A with the students and a pizza party afterwards.”

In support of music education, CMS will be sponsoring a double feature of the films “The Secret Song” and “The Last Repair Shop” with the Sedona International Film Festival on Thursday, April 25.

At the beginning of the 2023-24 music season, Sedona Symphony president Sue Buffum remarked on the difficulty orchestras across Arizona were having with finding string players, and the problem is not confined to the Southwest. A 2023 analysis from the auction house Tarisio showed that the number of violins being manufactured dropped sharply after 1930, with present-day production levels more closely resembling those prior to 1700.

“We’re trying to change that,” Beachell said of the prospective string shortage.

“I do a lot of traveling as a performer, and I see a lot of different communities, and Sedona really is at the top of the pack in terms of young community interest in classical music,” Canellakis said. “I really do think a lot has to do with having Courtney and Kristina, who are fantastic local teachers, and the collaboration with a professional institution.”

Sedona Symphony

“When I was teaching at Charter School, I used to have my charter students play with the Sedona Symphony … and we wanted to revive that collaboration,” Beachell said.

“We’ve wanted to forever, but now they have a new maestra, Janna Hymes,” Yeates continued. “This is her first year, and she’s a big supporter of music education, so when she caught wind that this is going on, she wanted to do something with it, and we weren’t planning on that, but it was very gracious of her to go, ‘Hey, lets see if we can pull this off.’”

“I’m stand partners [in the Symphony] with my college cello professor from the ’90s back in Texas, and she’s really important to me. And the concertmaster —”

“Was my teacher,” Beachell finished.”

“It’s really kind of sweet that it comes full circle, that we play with these women that we so admire, and then our students are going to get to play in the ensemble, too,” Yeates said. “Janna’s a real powerhouse. It’s a very grassroots kind of thing.”

The Youth Orchestra’s next solo concert is currently scheduled for Sunday, May 5, at the Sedona Performing Arts Center.

In Preparation

Yeates observed that because it was Easter weekend, a quarter of their usual players were absent for Saturday’s rehearsal, including most of the first violins and all the bassists. “But that’s good, because it puts them in the hot seat,” Yeates said. “You’ve been relying on your buddy to come read you through it, so we get into the nitty-gritty on days like today.”

The ensemble started the day’s practice off with Edouard Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole and Carlos Gardel’s “Por Una Cabeza,” which they will perform at their upcoming concert in May. They then moved into the menuetto from Franz Schubert’s Fifth Symphony, before tackling the Faure piece.

“It says da capo, not da feetsies,” Yeates joked in a New York Mafia accent at one point, reminding the students that the indication “da capo” in a score means “from the head” — in other words, to start playing a section over from the beginning. “I made you giggle so you can remember.”