Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Announces 2017-2018 Season

From the Cleveland Orchestra: The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) and its new Music Director, Vinay Parameswaran, announced details of the 2017-18 season. The Youth Orchestra, under Mr. Parameswaran’s direction, will perform a three-concert series at Severance Hall on December 1, 2017; February 25, 2018 (with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus); and May 5, 2018. Subscription packages are on sale now, with individual tickets available starting on September 18, 2017.

In addition to the performances in Severance Hall, the Youth Orchestra season includes concerts in nearby communities by both the full orchestra and by chamber ensembles comprised of Youth Orchestra members. A Prelude Concert, featuring Youth Orchestra members performing chamber music, begins one hour prior to each Severance Hall concert. The Prelude Concerts will take place in Reinberger Chamber Hall.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s 2017-18 Severance Hall season begins on Friday, December 1, 2017, at 8:00 p.m. with a program featuring selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suites, Barber’s Symphony 1, and Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3.

The Youth Orchestra’s second Severance Hall concert of the season takes place on Sunday, February 25, 2018, at 7:00 p.m. The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus joins the Youth Orchestra in performances of Howard Hanson’s Song of Democracy and Dvořák’s Te Deum. The program opens with Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s third and final concert of its 2017-18 Severance Hall season will be on Saturday, May 5, 2018, at 8:00 p.m. The program includes Beethoven’s Overture to Coriolan and a work, to be announced at a later date, spotlighting the winner of the 2018 Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition. Completing the program is Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra.

The 2017-18 season marks Vinay Parameswaran’s first as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra.

“We have a superb group of the region’s most talented students for the 2017-18 season. The one hundred musicians of COYO travel from nearly forty communities around the region to Severance Hall every week to learn from Cleveland Orchestra musicians and to delve into some of the greatest works in the symphonic repertoire,” said Mr. Parameswaran. “They make a deep commitment to the music and the ensemble. These young musicians are truly an inspiration, and they demonstrate that the future of classical music is in great hands. We have an extraordinary season lined up, and I can't wait for our audiences to see and hear the talented COYO musicians perform at the highest level.”

As part of an ongoing commitment to partnering with ideastream to provide greater access to music and culture, WCLV Classical 104.9 FM will present a live broadcast on-air and online of each of the three Youth Orchestra concerts in Severance Hall during the 2017-18 season.

The “Under 18s Free” ticket program is available for all Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra performances.The “Under 18s Free” program offers free tickets (one per regular-priced adult paid admission) to young people ages 7-17. The free tickets for Severance Hall concerts eligible for this program must be obtained through the Severance Hall Ticket Office beginning September 18, 2017.

“Under 18s Free” is a program for young people, supported by The Cleveland Orchestra’sCenter for Future Audiences. The Center, created with a lead endowment gift from the Maltz Family Foundation, was established to fund programs to develop new generations of audiences for Cleveland Orchestra concerts in Northeast Ohio.

For more information or to order the three-concert package, call Cleveland Orchestra Ticket Services at 216-231-1111 or 800-686-1141, or order online at clevelandorchestra.com.

Subscription and Ticket Information

Three-concert subscriptions to the Youth Orchestra’s 2017-18 Severance Hall season are currently on sale for $30 per seat, or $60 for a box seat. One “Under 18s Free” subscription is available with each adult subscription purchased (box seat subscriptions are not available in the “Under 18s Free” program).

Beginning September 18, 2017, individual performance tickets will be available for $15 per seat or $25 for a box seat. For more information or to order tickets, call Cleveland Orchestra Ticket Services at 216-231-1111 or 800-686-1141, or order online at clevelandorchestra.com. Please note that Severance Restaurant will be open for all Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra concerts; reservations are required. Call 216-231-7373 for reservations, or reserve online atclevelandorchestra.com.

Vinay Parameswaran

Vinay Parameswaran begins his tenure as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra as well as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in the 2017-18 season. He holds the Elizabeth Ring and William Gwinn Mather Assistant Conductor Endowed Chair. Mr. Parameswaran comes to Cleveland following three seasons as Associate Conductor of the Nashville Symphony from 2014-17, where he led over 150 performances.

Mr. Parameswaran was a Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2017. During the 2016-17 season, he made his guest conducting debuts with the Rochester Philharmonic and the Tucson Symphony. He also made an acclaimed subscription debut with the Nashville Symphony conducting works by Gabriella Smith, Grieg, and Prokofiev. Recent engagements have included his debuts with the National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Eugene Symphony, and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.

Equally at home conducting opera, Mr. Parameswaran has led acclaimed productions of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore with Curtis Opera Theater. He also assisted on a production of Verdi’s Nabucco with Opera Philadelphia.

Mr. Parameswaran is the conductor on the album “Two x Four” featuring the Curtis 20/21 ensemble as well as violinists Jaime Laredo and Jennifer Koh. Along with works by Bach, David Ludwig, and Philip Glass, the recording included Anna Clyne’s “Prince of Clouds,” which received a 2014 GRAMMY nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. He has participated in conducting masterclasses with David Zinman at the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, as well as with Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Mr. Parameswaran played as a student for six years in the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Political Science from Brown University, where he graduated with honors. At Brown, he began his conducting studies with Paul Phillips. He received a diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Otto-Werner Mueller as the Albert M. Greenfield Fellow.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is supported by a generous grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation and by gifts from many other donors from across Northeast Ohio. Endowment support is provided by The George Gund Foundation. For more information, please visit here.

Photo credit to Roger Mastroianni: The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra performing during the 2015-16 season.