I just found a new Must Have DVD and CD

I was looking through the On Demand listings today and didn’t find any TV shows or movies I wanted to see so I turned to the music listings. What I didn’t expect was to see an excerpt from a killer concert combining one of my favorite classic rock bands and a youth orchestra.

Concert.tv has let me see some great footage from some of my favorite bands, but when I found a 18 minute clip from Styx and a Cleveland orchestra I wasn’t expecting to get my socks blown off. What I found as a video made with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO) from a 2006 show. The concert was released as One With Everything in CD and DVD versions in November of 2006 with a Blu-Ray disk coming out earlier this year. The clip from concert.tv only has three songs (Blue Collar Man (Long Nights), Too Much Time on My Hands, and Boat on the River), but I was already sold. I had to watch it again just so I could enjoy watching the young musicians get into the songs while playing. I’m not saying that it’s odd that orchestral musicians don’t like rock and roll or that I’m surprised to see a group of high school students enjoying Styx so much, I just got a kick out of watching the players. It’s clear that they were having a blast.

It turns out that Liza Grossman and the orchestra are no strangers to working with big name artists in the rock arena, having already worked with Ray Manzarek of The Doors, Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young), Jon Anderson of Yes, Pat Benatar and her husband Neil Giraldo, as well as Styx and others. The orchestra has also premiered 46 world premieres and has received the Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement in the Classical Music/Opera category.

If you have any interest in classic rock music, orchestral music, young musicians or any combination of these to visit the CYO website. After you find out more about this great bunch of musicians click on the “listen+ watch” link on the lower left and get ready to both see and hear just how good they are. Plus you get to see a clip of Lorelei from the One With Everything DVD. If you’re like me you’ll want to fly, not surf, over to Amazon and buy the DVD, CD, or Blu-Ray of One with Everythingfor yourself. Even if you hate classical music I bet you’re going to love this performance.