Extreme Strings Orchestra gets ready for the 2008-09 season soon

The Extreme Strings Orchestra will kick off it's 3rd season on Saturday morning September 27 from 9-11 AM and you are invited. You can come to check us out or come and join - and we hope you do!

Here are all of the details you should know right now.

The XSO is an educational youth music program that specializes in the great American music styles of Fiddling , Jazz, and Rock.

We also play electronic instruments and work with pickups, wireless units, effects, amps and sound systems.

We are looking for middle, junior high, and high school students who play Violin, Viola, Cello, and Bass and are also open to Guitar and Mandolin players as well.

This program is open to ALL students from suburban schools, private schools, Pittsburgh Public Schools, and home-schooled students from all over the tri-state area.

We would prefer at least 2 years of experience playing the instrument but we can discuss that. Although we have some very fine advanced players this is not an elite group and we break the XSO into 2 or 3 groups most weeks and work with students at their own levels. However, it's most fun when we put the whole XSO together and we try to do that every week.

We meet at the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts High (CAPA for short) at the corner of 9th St. and Fort Duquesne Blvd. Downtown Pittsburgh as part of the Centers For The Musically Talented program.

We meet most Saturdays through the school year from 9-11 AM.

Tuition cost this year will be $450. There is a discount of $75 for full payment by 10/31/08. Also, families with more than one child in the program receive a discount of $100 per child.

There are full tuition grants available for up to 20 Pittsburgh Public School students.

Your tuition covers 24 educational sessions as well as performance opportunities through out the year. Last year we performed for the Three Rivers Arts Festival, in the Heinz Hall lobby as part of the "BOWFIRE" concert, the All City Arts Festiva, the "Saturday Light Brigade Radio Show" (twice) l and did workshops with students in the Norwin and West Mifflin School Districts and the Pulling String private music studio. We even had two of our students perform on stage with "BOWFIRE"

Our faculty includes myself, Sena Thompson as an instructor and arranger - the kids love her, Erin Snyder as low strings instructor, and Alex Van Laningham - a recent XSO grad - as well as outside professional instructors who will visit to do workshops in their specialty.

Last year we had about 25 students and many are returning. We hope you will join us. It's big fun.

Our new brochure will be ready later this week and we can send you one if you wish. It will definitely be on our site ASAP and we may attach it to a future email message.

Although we hope to do a complete update of the web site this week - which is overdue - there is some good information about our program including video and sound clips at http://www.extremestrings.com/Site/Home.html

Contact me if you need more information. Thank you for your consideration.

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Steven Vance
Yamaha Certified String Educator
Executive Director
EXTREME STRINGS
2549 Penn Ave
Pittsburgh PA 15222
412-325-1211
http://www.extremestrings.com
stevenvance@extremestrings.com

Jazz, Rock and Fiddling
Teaching, Learning and Playing Great American Music