BlueScope Steel Youth Orchestra

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The BlueScope Steel Youth Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based at the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music, in New South Wales, Australia, comprised of the best high school music students in the Wollongong and surrounding regions. Players are selected via an audition process. Currently, the orchestra is conducted by Nigel Edwards and managed by Tanya Phillips.

[edit] History

Promotional poster for Gita Swarasisya Buwana, a benefit concert that the orchestra performed in.

The BlueScope Steel Youth Orchestra was formed in 1985 with the financial backing of the then BHP Steel, which later became BlueScope Steel, a Port Kembla-based steel-making industry. This sponsorship was used to help the fledgeling orchestra in purchasing instruments, offering scholarships, and covering general operating costs.

More recently, orchestra has made trips overseas, and in 2005 travelled to Indonesia to perform at the 17th anniversary of the coronation of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, in a benefit concert named Gita Swarasisya Buwana to raise money for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. In 2008, the orchestra toured Spain, and performed in the historic cities of Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Oviedo, and in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.