Asian Youth Orchestra
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The Asian Youth Orchestra (AYO) was founded by Yehudi Menuhin and Richard Pontzious, with its inaugural concerts held in August 1990, conducted by Yehudi Menuhin
The 100 members of the AYO are among the finest young musicians from Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia (listed in the order from country with most musicians in AYO to least). As of 2006, there are no musicians from India or Indonesia. Chosen through highly competitive auditions held throughout the region, they are together for six weeks each summer, initially for a three week rehearsal camp, then to perform on tour for three weeks with international solo artists and conductors.
The AYO has performed with cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, violinists Gidon Kremer, Gil Shaham, Leila Josefowicz, Young Uck Kim, Akiko Suwanai and Cho-Liang Lin, soprano Elly Ameling, pianists Alicia de Larrocha, Cecile Licad, Leon Fleisher and Jon Nakamatsu, the Beaux Arts Trio and trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger. Among those who have conducted AYO are Sergiu Comissiona, Alexander Schneider, Eri Klas, Helen Cha-Pyo, Tan Dun and the orchestra's co-founders, Yehudi Menuhin and Richard Pontzious.
Since its debut concerts in 1990, the AYO has performed in New York's Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, at the White House, at the United Nations, and at the Hollywood Bowl. On two European tours the Orchestra has appeared in Amsterdam's historic Concertgebouw and opened the fall concert season in Berlin's Konzerthaus.
In 1996, AYO was the first international orchestra in more than 50 years to perform in Hanoi, Vietnam. The orchestra returned four years later for two concerts in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City before continuing on to Australia for debut concerts in the famed Sydney Opera House for the 2000 Olympic Arts Festival.
In 1997, the AYO was in Hong Kong and Beijing with cellist Yo-Yo Ma for the world premiere performances of Tan Dun's Symphony 1997. That tour, the longest ever undertaken in China by an international orchestra, also marked AYO's unparalleled third appearance in Beijing's 10,000-seat Great Hall of the People.
Since 1990, the Asian Youth Orchestra has played 209 concerts in 136 cities to nearly 750,000 people. Millions more around the world have seen and heard the orchestra on CNN, CNBC Asia, NHK Television, Radio and Television Hong Kong, and Star TV.
Some 1,000 to 1,500 musicians in 12 Asian countries and territories audition each year for AYO. The youngest is 15, the oldest 25. When selected, they study with an exceptional artist-faculty from the Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, National, San Francisco and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras, Boston Musica Viva, the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras and Monnaie Opera.
A tuition-free summer program, the Asian Youth Orchestra is designed to ignite a pride for what can be achieved by Asian musicians in Asia, while affecting a positive influence on the brain and talent drain that continues to frustrate all Asian nations. It is the orchestra's intention to expose Asia's brightest young musicians to rich and varied artistic experiences that include rare opportunities for exchange, study and performance.
A formation committee of Hong Kong business men and women created the organizational structure for the Asian Youth Orchestra in 1987 and established it as a non-profit charitable trust qualified under Section 88 of the Hong Kong Inland Revenue Ordinance as a tax-exempt institution.
