Excerpt from The Boston Globe Calendar, Arts Section, By Leslie Anderson
November 28, 2002

Sounds, sights to set the holiday mood

TONE DIARY - Nearly every member of the Metrowest Youth Symphony Orchestra has read "The Diary of Anne Frank." Now they are about to perform it.

On Dec. 8, the 30 teenage musicians will present "Elegy for Anne Frank" by Lukas Foss, a rarely performed tone poem for orchestra and piano that concludes with readings from Frank's diary about life in hiding from the Nazis.

"All of them were familiar with her story, and they're about the same age group, and I wanted them to make that connection with history," said music director Gilbert Trout, who will conduct the concert at MassBay Community College, 19 Flagg St., Framingham.

"I wanted them to know that music is current. It's not a spectator sport. It's an emotional commitment."

The free concert begins at 3 p.m. and includes Christoph W. von Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orpheus, with solo flutist Shaylan Campbell of Hopedale, and Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony No. 8. For more information, visit the orchestra's Web site at www.MetYSO.org.

Foss's composition illustrates the playfulness of a young girl and the daily ennui of living confined to an attic. Slowly, one can hear the infiltration of the Nazis, ending with a twisted version of the Nazi national anthem.

"Right at the climax of that, everything stops and the narration begins," said Trout, whose mother survived the Holocaust by hiding in an attic in Brussels. Daniel Jones will play the piano solo, and Adrienne Boris will read excerpts from the text. Both teens live in Medfield.

Trout, who studied music composition under Foss, said the orchestra plans to write a letter to the 80-year-old composer describing their experience playing his music. "I want them to know that composers are living people,"Foss said.