Local orchestra to perform concert
- posted: 13 Nov. 2007
- scrollarts@byui.edu
There will be a free orchestra concert at the Rexburg Tabernacle Civic Center this Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., courtesy of the Rexburg Tabernacle Orchestra.
The concert will be conducted by the orchestra’s director of four years, Dr. Lamar Barrus, and by guest conductor Ryan S. DaBell. Dr. DaBell is currently a faculty member of the Chemistry Department at BYU-Idaho, and Dr. Barrus is a retired orchestra director of Ricks College.
Dr. DaBell has performed on string instruments for over thirty years, and will be conducting “L’Arlesienne, Suite No. 2.”
The two directors demand a lot from their musicians, as members can attest.
“It’s made me a better musician and forced me to focus more,” said Benjamin Romney, a freshman studying general education.
Another feature of the concert is a solo performance by Shannon Packer, who will play “Violin Concerto No. 1,” by Max Bruch.
Packer has a master’s degree in violin performance from the University of Utah and Indiana University, where she finished her education.
In an orchestra of about seventy members, approximately fifteen to twenty are BYU-Idaho students and four are faculty members at the college.
Dr. Barrus says that the orchestra is in need of string instrumentalists. He also said that while searching for additional string players, he is interested in “not the age so much as level of achievement.”
The Rexburg Tabernacle Orchestra rehearses once per week from September to November then begins rehearsing again from January to May. 
