Empire State Youth Orchestra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Empire State Youth Orchestra (ESYO) was founded in 1979 by a group of dedicated parents and music educators. Based in Albany, New York, the orchestra is comprised of talented and musically advanced high school students from New York State, western Massachusetts, and southern Vermont. The orchestra is considered one of the premier youth orchestras in the United States, and regularly performs concerts at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Ozawa Hall at the Tanglewood Music Center, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City. To date, the orchestra has undertaken three international tours, traveling to Austria and Hungary in 1989, to Spain in 1994, and most recently to Germany and the Czech Republic in 2000. Helen Cha-Pyo has served as Music Director and Conductor of the orchestra since September 2002. Previous conductors have included Victoria Bond, Eiji Oue, Paavo Järvi, Francisco Noya, Jin Kim, and Burton Kaplan.
