BYU musicians enjoy night at Carnegie Hall

Among the premier concert venues in the world, Carnegie Hall certainly rates in the top five. It's no exaggeration to say that it's every performer or ensemble's desire to appear on the stage of the historic, 107-year-old hall.

And once it happens, one can say that one has arrived. It's a benchmark in an artist's career like no other.

While the venue regularly presents the world's major orchestras and soloists, as well as all the jazz greats, it does on occasion host community and school ensembles. And for them it's an experience that will last a lifetime.

Recently, Brigham Young University's chamber orchestra capped off a three-week East Coast tour with a concert in the venerable hall. For conductor Kory Katseanes and the 49-member orchestra, it was a larger-than-life dream come true.

"It was more than just a concert," Katseanes told the Deseret News. "It was kind of an event. It was satisfying in every way, and the response from the audience was just incredible."

The musicians had the same feeling. "It was absolutely amazing," said Sharon Meilstrup, who is the orchestra's pianist and principal cellist. "It was exciting hearing how great we sounded at the afternoon rehearsal and at the concert that night. It made us rise to the top."

"It was great. We loved the music, and we could feel the energy from the audience," Joe Nibley, the orchestra's principal trumpeter, said.

"We were all ecstatic, of course," Katseanes said. "You felt like you were on sacred ground because of all the great musicians who have played in Carnegie Hall."

The tour repertoire that Katseanes and the orchestra brought with them was fairly large in order to bring a little variety to the 10-city tour's program. For their Carnegie Hall concert, the orchestra opened with Copland's "Appalachian Spring" and closed with Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. In between the two, they played Rossini's overture to "La Gazza Ladra" and gave the New York premiere of K. Newell Dayley's "A Perfect Brightness of Hope," with soloists Jennifer Welch-Babidge, soprano, and Nathan Botts, trumpet. (Botts is a former BYU student who is now a freelance musician in New York.)

The concert was only the second time that a performing arts ensemble from BYU has appeared onstage in Carnegie Hall, and the Provo school made the most of the occasion.