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According to Rick Trostel, conductor of the Juneau Student Symphony and principal trumpet in the Juneau Symphony, two recent changes in the Juneau Student Symphony have had positive affects this year.

The first change has been the use of coaches for each section of the orchestra. The coaches, who all play with the Juneau Symphony, work with the students in special sectional rehearsals and play with the orchestra in regular rehearsals and concerts, Trostel explained.

"Several (of these coaches) are high-school aged," he added. "Most of them played with the Juneau Student Symphony earlier in their musical careers."

In addition to coaches, the full 50-piece orchestra consisting of musicians from age 8 to 80, will do outreach concerts.

"These are concerts where the orchestra comes to the audience," Trostel said. "Our first one will be our 'Peter and the Wolf' concert at Gastineau Elementary School for that corner of the borough on Monday evening, Nov. 17."

The symphony will do a total of three productions of "Peter and the Wolf," beginning Nov. 15, and the performances will be narrated by Bill Chalmers and illustrated live, in real time, by Tony "Toe" Newman.

"I am telling people they have to come to all three of our performances so they listen to the narration at the first concert, watch the drawings at the second and listen to the beautiful music at the third," Trostel said.

"Peter and the Wolf," based on Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev's 1936 piece, will be performed in it original composition.

"It is all very challenging, but since it is only a half hour of music, we can work carefully on all of the difficult licks," Trostel said. "I chose this piece because I love the music, first and foremost. So many people have told me that they became interested in classical music when they first heard this piece as a child. I thought our audiences would love to hear this beloved piece and I know that there will be young people whose first love in classical music will be this piece at our concert.

Prokofiev's famous story is about Peter and his animal friends, including a duck that meets its demise in the jaws of a wolf, Trostel said.

"Clever Peter traps the wolf in spite of his grandfather's stern warnings of the dangers in the woods," he said. "Each character is represented by a different instrument or section of the orchestra with it's own motif."

Trostel said he also chose the complex piece because he believes the Student Symphony is ready for the challenge.

"It is a stretch, but a reasonable and fertile endeavor," he said.

In addition to "Peter and the Wolf," Ethan Seid, winner of the Juneau Symphony Youth Concerto Competition, junior division, will be play the first movement of Bach's first violin concerto.

"This is a lovely piece full of the energy of the age of our soloist and full of the excitement of the emerging musicians in the orchestra," Trostel said.

Furthermore, Tyler Houswert will play the tenor saxophone, jokingly referred to as the cello-phone.

"He is a very talented high school sophomore who has been playing bassoon parts, transposing the music by sight," Trostel said of Houswert. "For this concert, we have the rare beauty of two actual bassoon players in the orchestra. I offered him a trombone part but it was not challenging enough for him. The cello part was sufficiently difficult. He not only plays the part well, but he imitates the cello sound, even effects like pizzicato."

Additionally each year, the Student Symphony prepares four programs, including a pops concert and a tour, for 10 total concerts.

"Our repertoire consists of easier professional music and more challenging arrangements (abridgements and simplifications) of standard classical literature," Trostel said. "Actually, the difficulty of the music is not as much a limit as the amount of difficult music that we can digest and prepare for one concert."

• Contact Neighbors editor Kim Andree at 523-2272 or neighbors@juneauempire.com.