Local High School Student to Perform with Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra

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The Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra will welcome audiences back in 2025 with its third concert of the season. Under the baton of Music Director and Conductor Ming Luke, The Classics 2 – “Brahms” concert will feature a local high school violin soloist.

Abigail Soulsby, a senior at Las Cruces High School, recently won the Las Cruces Symphony Youth Orchestra’s first concerto competition, playing the first movement of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto. She will join the full Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra on stage for a featured performance of the piece.

“I practiced for a long, long time and then once I got to the actual audition day, I was like, ‘well, I'm just here to have fun and see what happens,’” Soulsby says.

The youth orchestra, conducted by Dr. Michael Mapp, was created in recent years for area high school musicians. The ensemble consists of about 25 string instrument students, all of whom were eligible to compete in the competition.

Soulsby has played violin in Las Cruces since sixth grade, when she said the orchestra “just kind of spoke to” her. She was selected for the New Mexico Music Educators Association’s 2025 All-State Symphony Orchestra and also plays in a mariachi ensemble.

“What motivates me to play now is just to continue to get better and I like to see the results that come from my hard work,” Soulsby says. “This concert is going to be the experience of a lifetime and I'm so excited.”

The Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra’s first concert of the new year will be performed at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 18, and 3 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 19 at Atkinson Recital Hall, 1075 N. Horseshoe St., on the NMSU campus. Tickets for both concert dates are available for purchase online at LasCrucesSymphony.com or by calling 575-646-3709.

Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra, Abigail Soulsby, Las Cruces Symphony Youth Orchestra

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