San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra

USA

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Founded in 1981, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) is considered one of the world’s leading youth orchestras. It offers young, talented musicians from the San Francisco region a free, pre-professional orchestra experience at the highest level. The orchestra’s music director is Donato Cabrera, who also works regularly with the ensemble’s “big brother”, the San Francisco Symphony. Its musicians also serve as mentors for the orchestra, teaching the young musicians regularly.

During the summer of 2012, the young orchestra embarks upon its eighth European tour. The musicians have performed in many of Europe’s venerable concert halls, such as Vienna’s Musikverein, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. The orchestra’s conductors and soloists are no less illustrious: Herbert Blomstedt, Kurt Masur, Yo-Yo Ma, Yehudi Menuhin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Maxim Vengerov and Mstislav Rostropovich are part of a long list of those who have worked with the orchestra. The SFSYO had the extraordinary honour of being selected by the BBC London to open a series of broadcasts entitled Youth Orchestras of the World in the summer of 1995.