Los Angeles Youth Orchestra

LAYO provides a creative environment where young musicians from throughout the greater Los Angeles area and a wide variety of social, cultural, and economic backgrounds come together at weekly Sunday rehearsals to study and perform classical symphonic masterworks and contemporary music. These sessions over time build skills necessary for deep learning: discipline, patience, tools for analysis, historical context, and above all, a greater attention span. Whether or not students pursue a musical career, their participation in LAYO develops a deep intellectual and emotional understanding of music that will encourage them to listen to classical music, attend concerts, support arts organizations and give back to the community throughout their lives. Ample evidence of this effect can be seen through the accomplishments of LAYO alumni, who maintain strong connections with the organization. A few examples include one of LAYO’s earliest students, Niv Ashkenazi, a concert violinist and the first alum to serve on the LAYO Board; violinist Erin Kelly who is a top designer for NIKE in New York; cellist Pierre Derycz who is the Orchestra Manager for the Young Musician’s Foundation Orchestra in Los Angeles; and flutist Jonathan Zuckerman who is now a pathologist at UCLA Medical Center. All these former students are giving back to the community and society in powerful ways.

Founder and Artistic Director Russell Steinberg is an award-winning composer and concert lecturer for the Los Angeles Philharmonic who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. LAYO’s faculty of professional coaches and administrative staff are all accomplished musicians with extensive teaching and performing experience, all holding degrees from highly regarded universities. A unique quality of LAYO is that it emphasizes a mentoring model for coaches to work with students at every rehearsal, rather than the norm of other youth orchestras who use coaches occasionally. The weekly mentorship and instruction in both sectional and tutti rehearsals guides students to achieve proficiency and confidence playing the music. Before each rehearsal, the Orchestra Manager distributes notes from the Artistic Director to the faculty coaches as well as the members of each orchestra. The Artistic Director will comment on the previous rehearsal and give instruction on specific elements for students to focus on during the week to be prepared for the upcoming rehearsal. (i.e. remember to pay close attention to dynamics—every moment is either getting louder or softer by degrees but never static). Coaches in turn will plan their own sectionals based on these notes as well as the progress made in the previous sectional rehearsal. Strategic and financial planning are spearheaded by Executive Director Laura Kay Swanson to fulfill the short and long-terms goals of the organization.

From its inception, LAYO has drawn students from a surprisingly wide geographic area over Los Angeles County, with high concentrations of students from the Westside of LA, but also students from the Northeast in Glendale and Pasadena, South Los Angeles, and Northwest to Conejo Valley and Thousand Oaks. LAYO students currently represent 60 different public and private schools (as well as some students who are home schooled). These students would probably not have the opportunity to meet because of distance as well as economic and cultural diversity, but LAYO provides this opportunity to young musicians, leading to lifelong friendships that are built on a shared love of music, learning and a natural intellectual curiosity for many other subjects. LAYO recruits students by offering free clinics at their schools, through work of mouth and recommendations of current and former students and their parents, recommendations by private teachers of eligible students and by offering free tickets to LAYO concerts to all interested students. LAYO offers tuition assistance to all needy students who can pass an audition and be accepted into the orchestra.

In addition to three full time staff members, LAYO employs eight faculty coaches who provide instruction on individual instruments in weekly sectional rehearsals. The faculty coaches are not only professional working musicians with years of teaching experience, but they are alos seasoned performers and studio musicians who work with major ensembles and artists.

The orchestra was formed in 1999 on a semester grant from the Jewish Community Foundation, administered by Noreen Green and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony. The orchestra was based at Milken Community High School of the Stephen Wise Temple and conducted by Russell Steinberg, a composer recently appointed Director of Music for the Stephen Wise Schools. Approximately thirty students enrolled in the orchestra that was called the Los Angeles Jewish Youth Orchestra. Dr. and Mrs. Raymond Borun, through the Anna and Harry Borun Foundation, became the first major donors for the newly named Stephen Wise Youth Orchestra. In 2003, the orchestra membership grew beyond Jewish and local schools to include over 60 students from fifty Los Angeles area schools, both public and private. To reflect this growing diversity, Steinberg renamed the orchestra the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra. The Los Angeles Youth Orchestra officially became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2008, and today, LAYO serves over 120 students each season who rehearse at the Encino Community Center in two leveled ensembles and perform throughout the Los Angeles region and beyond. Since its inception, LAYO has developed a variety of unique performance opportunities for its students in partnership with some of the most prestigious orchestras and venues in the world.

Performance highlights include: In 2003, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra began a partnership with Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, making it possible for students to attend working LACO rehearsals. In 2007, the Los Angeles Philharmonic selected the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra as a Partner Orchestra, awarding the honor of performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall in November 2007. In 2010, LAYO spearheaded a Youth Orchestra Day performance in partnership with three area youth orchestras and received official recognition from the Mayor of Pasadena and the Los Angeles City Council. In 2013, LAYO traveled to New York City and performed at the legendary Carnegie Hall. This historic event marked the orchestra’s first national tour. In July 2015, LAYO embarked on its first international tour to Europe, performing in venues such as at the MuTH and Hadynsaal in Austria, and Dvořák Hall in Prague. In June 2017, LAYO completed its second international tour, traveling throughout Italy and performing at the Arvedi Auditorium in Cremona, Terme Tettuccio in Montecatini and Sant’Agnese in Rome. In 2019, LAYO received a $500,000 gift from the Anna and Harry Borun Foundation to rename the Concert Orchestra as the Ruth Borun Concert Orchestra and in June will perform at Walt Disney Concert Hall as part of the West Coast Youth Orchestra Festival.