COTTAGE GROVE – When the Eugene Symphony invited conductor Daniel Cho back for their two annual outdoor shows, he jumped at the opportunity.
“I love these shows,” said Cho, who left Eugene last year to join the Alabama Symphony. “I think everybody always looks forward to the park concerts.”
BOB WILLIAMS / THE CHRONICLE
At Monday evening’s Symphony in the Park – part of the Chamber of Commerce Concert in the Park series – it was clearly apparent why bleachers were added for this event: It’s the show of the year in Cottage Grove. Plus, it’s free.
Heck, even the Cottage Grove City Council scrapped its meeting so Mayor Candace Solesbee and councilors Chalice Savage, Jon Stinnett, Dana Merryday, Greg Ervin, Mike Fleck, and Alex Dreher had a chance to go to the concert.
BOB WILLIAMS / THE CHRONICLE
“The city manager (Michael Sauerwein) realized the concert was scheduled on the same night as our meeting, and we’re required to have one meeting a month, so he suggested we cancel it,” Solesbee said. “We have a lot of business to be done so we decided to have a meeting (Tuesday) night instead.”
There had been rumblings a while back that the city might have to pull the plug on the Symphony in the Park show; now, it looks as though the show will go on.
“Just like every other city in America, it’s been a pretty tight budget year,” Solesbee said. “We had a lot of unexpected expenses, so we had to weigh everything out to see if we could afford it.
“From now on we’re going to try to get ahead of the game and start going after sponsors early on. Then the burden won’t be on the taxpayers so we can always offer some culture back to Cottage Grove by offering this event, because this is wonderful.
“And we couldn’t have had a more perfect weather night.”
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An eye-popping highlight Monday night was the violin solo by 16-year-old Andrew Lee, who will be a junior this year at Sunset High School in Portland.
To say that he was thrilled to sit in with the Eugene Symphony would be massively understating matters.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me,” Lee said after the concert. “To play with a professional orchestra as a high schooler – even as a high schooler you don’t get that many chances to perform – and to perform at such a high level, this is a life-changing experience.”
Lee, who joined the Portland Youth Philharmonic in 2021 as assistant principal second violin, took third place in the 2023 Oregon State Solo Contest and the 2023 ASTA Competition.
The Eugene Symphony in the Park in Cottage Grove this week allowed for youngsters to try out some strings.
One thing that jumps out on his resume, though, is that he’s the co-founder of Euphonos Ensemble, which is devoted to making communities better through music.
“I have this nonprofit that I run with my friends,” Lee said of Euphonos Ensemble. “We go around and play at nursing homes to share the love of music and I usually play some of my short solos – one, to spread our love of music, and also to put myself out there. As high schoolers we don’t get many chances to perform as professional musicians, so I just feel like the more the better.”
