Classical Music/JSO Young Professionals? (plus a concert review)

[JFman00]

So I sucked it up and saw the JSO concert tonight (Prok PC no. 3, La Mer) alone. Apparently in the past there was a JSO young professional group that is now defunct. I was thinking of getting a group started for frequenting JSO, Friday Musicale, Riverside Fine Arts, etc. and figured this might be a decent place to gauge interest (please move this thread to performing arts if it's more appropriate there).

Quick review of tonight: decent rendition of Dukas - Sorceror's Apprentice. Only notable thing for me was the contrabassoon REALLY milking his part, with some pretty entertaining results. Prokofiev: pianist (Antii Siirala) was excellent. A straight-forward, accurate rendition punctuated with foot stomps from him at climax points. Some MAJOR dragging going on in the horn section in the 2nd movement, very distracting. Enthusiastic standing ovation at the end. Debussy - La Mer was gorgeous, as Debussy normally is. It was a little too *pretty* of a performance for me but no glaring problems otherwise. Handful of people stood up, but a cooler reception than I would've anticipated, especially considering the piece which followed... Till Eulenspiegel. I am not a Strauss fan, so the thunderous applause at the end took me by surprise. I can't help but feel like I'm listening to a Bugs Bunny cartoon when I hear his over-the-top tone poems. In any case, the brass did rock the ending, and the violin solos were well-suited to concertmaster Philip Pan's virtuoso playing style.