The Night is Still Young: Looking Back on 40 Years of The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra

From The Cleveland Orchestra and Blossom Music Center to the Cleveland Institute of Music and Playhouse Square, Cleveland boasts an embarrassment of musical riches. Not least of these is The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The ensemble, colloquially known as COYO, was founded by Cleveland Orchestra Associate Conductor Jahja Ling in 1986. As we look back on COYO’s impressive history, we applaud its 1,750-some past and current musicians, nine conductors, and more than 100 coaching members of The Cleveland Orchestra who have shared their talents and passion for classical music with the next generation of performers.

A Brief History

After receiving a generous five-year grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation in 1985, the Musical Arts Association endeavored to form an organization that would, according to founder Jahja Ling, “give talented young players some pre-professional experience that’s as close to the real thing as possible.” Ling, who had previously been involved in forming the San Francisco Youth Orchestra, was called upon to recreate his West Coast success in the Great Lakes region. The Cleveland Orchestra became one of the first major American orchestra to have an affiliated youth orchestra, initially auditioning musicians from 11 counties across Northeast Ohio between the ages of 12 and 20 for some 100 seats. COYO’s inaugural program on February 1, 1987, featured Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 (“London”), and Bernstein’s Overture to West Side Story.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra performs Bernstein’s Overture to West Side Story at its first concert.

To this day, members rehearse for four hours a week at Severance Music Center, partake in monthly sectionals with Cleveland Orchestra professionals, and perform multiple concerts packed with challenging orchestral repertoire each year.

After Ling vacated his position in 1993, The Cleveland Orchestra’s Director of Choruses Gareth Morrell was chosen to lead COYO’s next era. Morrell had founded The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus just two years earlier, and his tenure as conductor and Music Director of the Youth Orchestra brought the two ensembles together on more than one occasion. For the 10th anniversary concert, COYO commissioned a new work by Cleveland Institute of Music student Ryan Beard. Entitled “Night Passing,” the piece was inspired by a statue located by Wade Lagoon, across from Severance.

Steven Smith assumed the mantle of COYO Music Director in 1998, leading the ensemble when it was selected to participate in the first-ever National Youth Orchestra Festival at Interlochen that same year. Under Smith’s direction, COYO was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall in 2001 as part of their Family Concert Series, becoming only the second youth orchestra in the nation to receive this honor. On the way back from New York City, the Youth Orchestra performed an additional concert at Penn State University’s Center for the Performing Arts.

One of the shortest tenures of any COYO conductor belongs to James Gaffigan, who held the baton between 2003 and 2006. For the 20th anniversary concert in 2005, he and the Youth Orchestra paid homage to the ensemble’s inaugural concert with a performance of the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. Gaffigan’s successor, Jayce Ogren, also occupied the podium for three seasons, during which time the Youth Orchestra went on its first tour. In 2009, COYO visited Boston, taking time outside of performances of Richard Strauss’s Don Juan and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to explore the city. Students were treated to a lecture at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a concert by the Boston Pops Orchestra, among other fun sightseeing experiences including a trip to the Salem Witch Museum.  

Later in 2009, James Feddeck began his first tenure at the Youth Orchestra. He helped put together a special alumni concert for COYO’s 25th anniversary in 2011, with 85 former players and three past conductors returning to perform a program featuring Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meistersinger, Falla’s Suite No. 2 from The Three-Cornered Hat, and the finales from Brahms’s First Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra alumni perform the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.

The following year, COYO embarked on its first-ever international tour, performing for European audiences in Prague, Vienna, and Salzburg. The 75 young musicians took the stage at Dvořák Hall, walked the grounds of Karlštejn Castle, visited the Musikverein – home of the Vienna Philharmonic – and explored Mozart’s birthplace, among other unique opportunities. For many COYO members, the European tour was their first trip abroad; according to Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, who met up with the Youth Orchestra in Vienna, “It’s just wonderful that they have this experience traveling, and playing in different venues is important to widen the horizon of a young musician.”

Brett Mitchell, former Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra, began directing the Youth Orchestra in 2013. Two years after taking up the baton, he led COYO on their second overseas tour, this time to China, where they performed in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Ningbo. The group visited the Great Wall and the Temple of Heaven, took a trip on a high-speed train, and attended a performance by the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe. Throughout his tenure, Mitchell focused on broadening COYO’s repertoire to include more works by American composers. His final concert with the Youth Orchestra featured Joan Tower’s Made in America.

Mitchell was succeeded by Vinay Parameswaran in 2017, who soon faced the enormous undertaking of leading COYO through the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the shutdown, Parameswaran conducted the Youth Orchestra across Europe during its third international tour, this time to Linz, Vienna, Budapest, and Bratislava. Unlike their previous visit to the world capital of classical music, COYO was invited to perform at the Musikverein instead of merely touring the historic concert hall. Welser-Möst also facilitated a collaboration with the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz. This educational and cultural exchange gave four members from the ensemble the opportunity to participate in a series of master classes and coachings, which culminated in a performance of Schubert’s Octet at the University’s Great Hall. Off stage, COYO visited the Vienna State Opera House and Schönbrunn Palace, took a riverboat down the Danube, and spent a sobering morning at the Mauthausen concentration camp.

After the success of Welser-Möst’s smaller-scale exchange program in Linz, COYO’s next conductor Daniel Reith (who took the podium in 2022) led the Youth Orchestra on its first ensemble-wide cultural exchange with the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra in summer 2024. Over the course of two collaborative weekends, the ensembles attended performances by The Cleveland Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, sat in on master classes, and rehearsed, both as one combined orchestra and separately with swapped conductors. The concert program, performed at both Blossom Music Center and Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall, blended classics by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky with new works by composers Hannah Kendall and Valerie Coleman.

2025 saw the return of James Feddeck to the COYO podium. He revealed to Cleveland Classical that after the pandemic, he “felt that every serious artist has a responsibility to do something for the next generation.” Over the course of his 12-year absence, Feddeck encountered many former COYO members performing in major orchestras internationally. Alumni who ended up pursuing non-musical careers were also “doing incredible things in the field of choice,” and explained to him that “the intensity of the COYO program… gave them an advantage over their peers.” Seeing the impact of the Youth Orchestra on so many young professionals convinced Feddeck to return to his post.

Learning from the Best

Throughout its 40 years, The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra has worked with a host of world-renowned conductors and composers. In addition to Cleveland Orchestra Music Directors Christoph von Dohnányi and Welser-Möst, the ensemble has been led in rehearsal by Pierre Boulez, Witold Lutosławski, Peter Maxwell Davies, John Adams, and Michael Tilson Thomas, among others. COYO has also given world premieres for 15 new works, including John Mackey’s Do Not Go Gentle (1993–4), Tobias Picker’s And Suddenly It’s Evening (1997), and Roger Briggs’s Fountain of Youth (2016). Many of the pieces debuted by COYO were commissions.

And let’s not forget about the exceptionally talented instrumentalists located right here in Cleveland. Since 1987, COYO has maintained a tradition of mentorship from professionals in The Cleveland Orchestra. To date, the two ensembles have shared the stage during 14 side-by-side concerts and, in more recent years, numerous side-by-side rehearsals where students are able to closely observe the experts at work. Opportunities like this prepare COYO members for their own professional careers, accounting for the large number of alumni to win coveted full-time orchestra positions after graduating college.

Exceptional Alumni

Since its inception, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra has been committed to providing opportunities to underprivileged musicians in the Greater Ohio region. According to the ensemble’s first manager Lauren Generette, “COYO recognized that it could play a part in expanding the pool of young minority musicians, especially as more and more professional orchestras are opening their doors to minority players.” A shining example is violist (and former violinist) Eliesha Nelson, COYO’s concertmaster from 1990–92, who became the first graduate of the Youth Orchestra to land a job in its parent organization in 2001. She has since been joined in The Cleveland Orchestra by six other COYO alumni: Lyle Steelman (Assistant Principal Trumpet), Jeffrey Zehngut (violin), Gareth Zehngut (First Assistant Principal Viola), Jessica Sindell (Assistant Principal Flute), Meghan Guegold Hege (horn), and Gabriel Napoli (viola).

Other former COYO members play in leading orchestral and chamber ensembles across the US, perform as soloists, and collaborate with a “who’s who” of the music industry. For example, cellist Alisa Weilerstein (COYO member from 1993–94) received a MacArthur “genius grant” in 2011 and is an internationally renowned soloist and recording artist. Violinist Annaliesa Place (1992–96) has worked with jazz and popular music artists including Ariana Grande, Michael Bublé, Herbie Hancock, and Stevie Wonder, and has held Broadway pit orchestra chairs in shows like Beetlejuice, Sunset Boulevard, and (currently) The Lost Boys. Percussionist Matt Bassett (1987–89) is now principal timpanist of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Joshua Elmore (2013–16) was recently appointed principal bassoonist of the San Francisco Symphony.

Looking Forward

COYO begins their 40th season with a concert on November 20 at Severance Music Center, featuring Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat Suite, and Borodin’s Second Symphony. In the winter, The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus will join the Youth Orchestra in a program of Copland’s Suite from Billy the Kid, Brahms’s Nänie, and Vaughan Williams’s Toward the Unknown Region. COYO’s spring concert will include a world premiere by the current Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow Tyler Taylor, a performance by the winner of COYO’s Concerto Competition, and Respighi’s Pines of Rome.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra was founded with the hopes that rigorous coaching from members of Cleveland’s flourishing music community would foster the talents of budding musicians in the Greater Ohio region. Four decades later, COYO is stronger than ever, continuing to provide practical, real-world experiences for teens considering careers in classical music. The Youth Orchestra consistently exceeds limitations ascribed to pre-professional orchestras, tackling some of the most challenging repertoire in the canon and performing for audiences around the world. Thanks to COYO’s conductors, coaches, alumni, and current members, hundreds of students have built invaluable skills of artistry, teamwork, and discipline that will aid them in both musical and non-musical professions. COYO is a microcosm of our city’s musical legacy and future, and in the years to come, its members will continue to represent Cleveland’s artistic and musical spirit with pride.

Fun Facts

COYO’s most performed pieces include:

• John Adams’s The Chairman Dances (13 times)
• Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (12 times plus five partial performances)
• Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture (11 times)
• Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (11 times)
• Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (10 times plus two partial performances)

— Celine Gosselin is the 2026–27 Archives Research Fellow. The fellowship is an opportunity for PhD music students from Case Western Reserve University to work in The Cleveland Orchestra Archives.