Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's First Performance Announced

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) will perform a three-concert series at Severance Hall this season. The first show will be held November 15, 2019 and the final two shows will be held in 2020. Tickets for the concerts are now on sale.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is composed of 100 middle and high school students. The performers come from 36 communities, in 10 counties, across Northeast Ohio.

The November 15 show features the Cleveland premiere of American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider's "Something for the Park," a piece originally commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2016.

The next COYO show will be March 1. The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus will be join COYO for performances of Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer and the Cleveland premiere of Arvo Pärt’s "In Principio."

The final COYO performance of the season will be May 3, 2020. The show will feature the Cleveland premiere of Tumblebird Contrails by Gabriella Smith, an American composer.

The Youth Orchestra is led by music director Vinay Parameswaran. This is his third season leading COYO.

“I’ve tried to create a group that’s versatile, that’s equally comfortable playing Mozart as it is playing a piece written this year,” said Parameswaran. “This new crop of students is up to the task; they realize the expectations we have in the group and they’re fitting in seamlessly. This season is really a season of exploration. The majority of the works that we’re playing have never been played by COYO before, and one work on each of the three concerts has never been played in Cleveland before, so it allows us to showcase the versatility of this orchestra. It’s going to be an exciting and challenging season for us, but all of us in the Cleveland community should be proud of what these young musicians can accomplish.”