ESYO has engaged, inspired and empowered young musicians through outstanding music and performance opportunities since 1979. Beginning with a single orchestra more than four decades ago, ESYO has grown to include 14 performing ensembles, a fiddling group, chamber program, and a community-based music program called CHIME. ESYO players are afforded exceptional learning opportunities with professional musicians, renowned conductors and passionate teaching artists. Combined, ESYO’s performing ensembles offer more than thirty public performances each year at a variety of venues including Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Tanglewood, Arthur Zankel Music Center, Proctors, and Carnegie Hall. ESYO has received three prestigious awards for its adventurous programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and has had six European tours, including participation in the 2018 World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles festival in Hungary. ESYO has also toured in Asia, performing at the 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea.
ESYO’s programming provides a solid musical foundation for those students who want to pursue musical careers. Repertoire features masterworks as well as music from living composers. ESYO has commissioned music from composers such as Samuel Adler, Hilary Tann, Dan Cooper, Jin Hi Kim, Clint Needham, Grammy-winning Bill Cunliffe, and Michael Davis, which allows our musicians to be a part of the creative process as they work with the composer in rehearsal and bring a musical idea to life in a performance.
Working with professional musicians goes beyond the weekly rehearsals and coaching sessions; ESYO musicians have taken advantage of master classes and visits from guest artists such as The Shanghai Quartet, Boston Brass Quintet, Hyperion Quartet, ESYO alum Gary Wicks from Manhattan Transfer, Benjamin Zander, Alan Vizutti, Charles Yang, and “Blue” Lou Marini. Collaborations with other arts organizations such as Albany Symphony Orchestra and Albany Pro Musica enhance the ESYO Experience.
ESYO graduates tell us that their ESYO experience helped them develop skills (such as working in a team, responsibility, and discipline) that have helped them achieve success. Alumni can be found in all walks of life from finance to science to medicine to business, and of course in the music industry. ESYO is well represented by alumni on stage performing classical and contemporary music in national orchestras and in small combos, backstage as arts managers, recording engineers, and composers, and in the classroom teaching the next generation of musicians.
ESYO seeks to expand its impact beyond its membership, believing music can be a catalyst for positive change in the communities where ESYO musicians live, learn, and play. This is why ESYO has helped raise millions of dollars for Albany Medical Center’s pediatric oncology program through the Melodies of Christmas concerts. This is why ESYO musicians perform in senior centers, at festivals, and farmers markets. And it is why ESYO launched the CHIME program in 2015. CHIME provides free, daily music instruction and mentorship for Schenectady youth, expanding access to the joys and benefits music making offers. Our outstanding CHIME teaching artists place children on the path to musical empowerment and cultivates skills needed to succeed in all areas of life, including collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking.
ESYO is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit that is largely supported by private funding from individuals, corporations, and foundations, and is governed by a volunteer board of directors. Although the music education/performance schedule follows the school year, the administrative office is open throughout the year.
