Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras hires new leader from New York

Grant O'Brien is the new music director for the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras.
Jacksonville Symphony
/
via Florida times-Union
Grant O'Brien is the new music director for the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras.

A classic Disney film changed Grant O'Brien's life.

O'Brien, the new music director of the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras, didn't particularly care for classical music when he was growing up in Houston. He was a drummer in a rock band that played Rush, White Stripes and Led Zeppelin covers.

Then he saw "Fantasia," the animated 1940 Disney film that uses classical pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.

Read the rest of this story at WJCT News partner The Florida Times-Union.