It's not often you see a high school student conducting other students in a chamber orchestra, but Evan Meccarello isn't just any student. At the Hochstein School of Music, he was chosen to be a conductor's apprentice, in one of the only programs of its kind in the country. "Once you're up there you have this whole different view of what's going on in the music," says Evan. "It's like looking at the land from up in the air." Evan is as decoted to his classes at Hochstein, as he is to his school work at Canandaigua Academy. He's an honors student, a great violinist, and his teachers say, he's a natural leader. Nancy Strelawy is the conductor of the Hochstein Youth Symphony Orchestra. She says Evan is a real thinker. "He thinks a lot about the entire picture of music, the interpretation, the language of it, the playing, the listening. That's why he's doing the conducting, and he transfers right away. He gets it right away." Evan hopes one day to play in a professional orchestra. Someday, he'd like to teach music. With this turn at the podium, he's already off to a great start.
