 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2011) |
The Asian Youth Orchestra (AYO) is a youth orchestra composed of musicians from several Asian countries. It was founded by Yehudi Menuhin and Richard Pontzious in 1987, and its first concert took place in August 1990, conducted by Menuhin.[ citation needed ] Currently, the orchestra's artistic director is Richard Pontzious, its principal conductor is Joseph Bastian, and its conductor laureate is Sergiu Comissiona.
AYO's history includes the premiere of Tan Dun's Symphony 1997 with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and concerts in venues such as Beijing's Great Hall of the People, New York's Avery Fisher Hall, California's Hollywood Bowl, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Berlin's Shauspielhaus, Vienna's Konzerthaus, Northern Virginia's Wolf Trap, and the Sydney Opera House. The orchestra has also performed in the White House and at the United Nations.
A formation committee of Hong Kong businessmen and women created the organizational structure for the Asian Youth Orchestra in 1987 and established it as a tax-exempt non-profit organization qualified under Section 88 of the Hong Kong Inland Revenue Ordinance.
In 2017, the orchestra made its debut at Young Euro Classic. [1]
The members of the Asian Youth Orchestra (AYO) are pre-professional musicians from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Chosen through auditions held throughout the region, the orchestra members spend six weeks together each summer: first, they participate in a three-week rehearsal camp in Hong Kong, and then they travel for another three weeks on a tour with conductors and soloists.
Cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, Jian Wang and Alisa Weilerstein, violinists Sarah Chang, Vadim Repin, Gidon Kremer, Gil Shaham, Elmar Oliveira, Young Uck Kim, Yu-Chien Tseng, Suwanai Akiko and Cho-Liang Lin, soprano Elly Ameling, pianists Alicia de Larrocha, Cecile Licad, Leon Fleisher, Anna Tsybuleva, the Beaux Arts Trio and trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger are among those who have performed with AYO. Conductors include Sergiu Comissiona, Alexander Schneider, Tan Dun, Okko Kamu, Eri Klas, principal conductor James Judd, and the orchestra's co-founders, Yehudi Menuhin and Richard Pontzious.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110707175553/http://www.asianyouthorchestra.com/index-hear.html
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, was an American-born British violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the great violinists of the 20th century. He played the Soil Stradivarius, considered one of the finest violins made by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari.
Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, commonly abbreviated as HKPO or HKPhil, is the largest symphony orchestra in Hong Kong. First established in 1947 as an amateur orchestra under the name Sino-British Orchestra (中英管弦樂團), it was renamed the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1957 and became a professional orchestra in 1974 under the funding of the government.
The Yehudi Menuhin School is a specialist music school in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey, England, founded in 1963 by violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin. The current director of music is the British classical pianist Ashley Wass. The school is one of the five established musical schools for school-age children in the United Kingdom, along with Chetham's School of Music, Wells Cathedral School, the Purcell School and St. Mary's Music School, Edinburgh. It is mainly funded by the Department for Education's Music and Dance Scheme, by philanthropic foundations, by donations and bequests from individuals, and by regular support from the Friends of the Yehudi Menuhin School.
Tan Dun is a Chinese-born American composer and conductor. A leading figure of contemporary classical music, he draws from a variety of Western and Chinese influences, a dichotomy which has shaped much of his life and music. Having collaborated with leading orchestras around the world, Tan is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Grawemeyer Award for his opera Marco Polo (1996) and both an Academy Award and Grammy Award for his film score in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). His oeuvre as a whole includes operas, orchestral, vocal, chamber, solo and film scores, as well as genres that Tan terms "organic music" and "music ritual."
Sergiu Comissiona was a Romanian-Israeli-American conductor and violinist.
Chen Jiafeng is a Chinese violinist. He was the first prize winner in the 2003 International Competition for Young Violinists K. Lipinski and H. Wieniawski and the second prize winner in the 2008 International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition, and the second prize of the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki.
Ma Xiaohui is an erhu player and composer from Shanghai, People's Republic of China. She is one of China's few first-class traditional artists embracing an international career. Critics have referred to her as "an artist who speaks with the world through Erhu" and "a musician who plays with heart."
Maurice Gendron was a French cellist, conductor and teacher. He is widely considered one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century. He was an Officer of the Legion of Honor and a recipient of the National Order of Merit. He was an active member of the French Resistance during World War II.
Hyung-ki Joo is a Korean-British pianist, composer, comedian and one half of the comedy-musical duo Igudesman & Joo. Billy Joel chose Joo to arrange and record his classical piano pieces for the album Fantasies & Delusions. It was recorded in the Mozart Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus, and reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart for 18 weeks.
Igudesman & Joo is a duo comprising classical musicians Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo, whose shows combine comedy with classical music and popular culture.
Valter Dešpalj was a Croatian cellist and a professor at the Zagreb Academy of Music.
Turku Music Festival is the oldest continuously operating music festival in Finland. The festival was founded in 1960 by the Musical Society in Turku. The city festival offers audiences' big orchestral concerts, chamber music concerts, recitals, jazz, out-door events and concerts. The festival is annually visited by both international and Finnish artists.
Bobby Chen is a Malaysian pianist. He has been praised by the Independent, Guardian, Irish Examiner, and Straits Times newspapers and was described by International Piano Magazine as "an armour-clad player of complete technique, a thinking musician, a natural Romantic. Young bloods come no better". Chen has performed as soloist under conductors Mathias Bamert, Maximiliano Valdes, Lan Shui, Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, and Pierre-Andre Valade and concerti with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London Sinfonietta, Warsaw Sinfonia, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.
Norman Perryman was born in Birmingham, England in 1933, was educated at the Worcester Royal Grammar School, and studied painting and art education at the Birmingham College of Art and Crafts, graduating with Honours in 1954. He emigrated to the Netherlands in 1957, then moved to Switzerland. He was Head of Art at Aiglon College (1967–73) and from 1976–1990 was Chief Examiner for the Visual Arts programme of the International Baccalaureate, designing and developing the Visual Art curriculum and traveling worldwide to give workshops on the role of the arts in education and the relationships of the visual arts and music. He returned to Holland in 1978 and now lives in Amsterdam.
The Hong Kong Festival Orchestra (HKFO) is one of the biggest youth orchestra and choir organisations in Hong Kong.
Anne Gastinel is a French cellist and professor.
Mary Mei Loc Wu, also known as Mary Wu, is a Chinese classical pianist, now based in Hong Kong.
Dale Henderson is an American cellist. He plays a 1914 Thomas James Holder cello. Henderson is the founder and thought leader for the worldwide music movement Bach in the Subways, and has toured the world performing equal access concerts to renew interest in classical music.
In Search of Perfect Consonance《尋找完美第五度》is a short documentary film directed by Oscar-winning Chinese-American filmmaker Ruby Yang. It profiles the Asian Youth Orchestra (AYO) established 25 years ago to promote peace in the region. The film explores the 25-year history of AYO and its origins while focusing on the friendships and deep bonds created between current members to further highlight the theme of peace through music. The film premiered in Hong Kong cinemas on 17 July 2016.
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
