Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras

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Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras (SYSO) is the largest youth symphony organization in the United States^[1], the eighth oldest and among the most distinguished.

Founded in 1942 by Hungarian violinist Francis Aranyi, SYSO now serves around 500 young musicians during the academic year with five full orchestras: the Symphonette, Classical, Debut, Junior and Youth Symphony Orchestras.

SYSO also offers four summer music programs. Marrowstone Summer Music, hosted by Western Washington University in Bellingham, serves around 185 high school and college aged students a year with a two-week intensive residential summer program. Faculty members at Marrowstone have included Dale Clevenger and Glenn Dicterow. Three sessions of Marrowstone in the City (MITC) are held in suburbs that surround Seattle, and serve over 330 younger players.

SYSO works with local schools through the Endangered Instruments Program, started by Walter Cole, a project that exposes middle school students to less commonly played instruments like the oboe, bassoon, viola, double bass and French horn. The first of its kind in the United States, the program has been emulated in many other places, including New York City, Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Vancouver, B.C. EIP partners with 13 Seattle-area public schools to serve over 170 students a year.

Through all of its programs, Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras serves over 1,100 young musicians each year. Its concerts reach over 14,000, and are replayed over KING-FM to audiences in excess of 200,000.

Vilem Sokol at 90

The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, SYSO's oldest and most accomplished orchestra, has a long and vaunted history. Vilem Sokol led the orchestra for many years, and it was under him that the YSO gave the fourth performance of Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony - after the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Under Maestro Sokol, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra made two recordings of Mahler's Tenth.

Today, SYSO is led by Stephen Rogers Radcliffe.