Collaboration: Impacting the Music Ecosystem

While our students are the heart and soul of the PYO Music Institute, we are also proud to support an entire network of musicians and individuals .

Radio Audience

The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra maintains a close relationship with radio station WRTI 90 .1-FM, which broadcasts PYO concert recordings weekly in November and May to an audience of approximately 300,000 listeners . PYO was featured seven times in the 2019-20 season .

Guest Artists

In November 2019, PYO musicians partnered with guest conductor Josephine Lee and vocalist Lisa Fischer and her band, Grand Baton, for a concert in Verizon Hall as part of Kimmel Center Presents!

Community Partners

Tune Up Philly partnered with the Barnes Foundation to plan a Friday evening outing for TUP cellists (Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra performed a Haydn Cello Concerto) .

Music Majors

We support our students who desire to pursue a post-secondary education in music through our College and Conservatory Audition Preparation program (CCAP) . This series of information sessions and mock auditions (presented by faculty from The Philadelphia Orchestra) for juniors and seniors offers insight into choosing a school, performing trial lessons, and taking auditions .

Music Educators

The Ovation Award honors an outstanding music teacher who, while imparting musical knowledge, builds character, self-confidence and capabilities that position students for success in every aspect of their lives . This year’s Ovation Award recipient, Susan Ohrt, received the most nominations—37!—in the award’s history .

Composers

The PYO Music Institute strengthens the next generation of composers by performing the winning composition of our Young Composers Competition . This season, we took a hiatus on the competition to commission alumnus Sheridan Seyfried to write a piece, entitled “Flourishes and Dreams,” for PYO’s 80th Anniversary Festival Concert .

Alumni

We launched an Alumni Network for our more than 5,000 alumni in 20192020 . During the holiday season, the Alumni Network joined PYO for a Holiday Side-by-Side . The combined 160-piece orchestra read through Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony and played fun holiday tunes including Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride” and excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker .