Past tours & festivals:
In June 2018, ESYO collaborated with groups around the Capital Region to bring the collaborative creativity of more than 400 young musicians, singers, dancers, poets and visual artists to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. It was a fantastic event that included performances by the Haudenosaunee Singers and Dancers from the Onondaga Nation, and local Native American author and storyteller, Joseph Bruchac.
ESYO continues to participate in FOYA, most recently in June 2023, with our CHIME Orchestra, Repertory Orchestra, and Youth Jazz Orchestra performing alongside Capital District Youth Chorale and Northeast Ballet Company.
ESYO Wind Orchestra toured for the first time in its history, August, 2018. At the invitation of Dr. Czikota Jozsef, President of the Eastern World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE), the Wind Orchestra traveled to Mako to participate in the 2018 WASBE Music Festival. As Festival participants, the Wind Orchestra had the opportunity to perform and to hear outstanding ensembles from across the world, engaging in a true cross-cultural exchange.
In June of 2016, ESYO Symphony Orchestra traveled to Portugal, spending a day and a half in Torres Novas where a special Fourth of July BBQ was shared with the members of Orquestra Academica do Medio Tejo. The Symphony Orchestra engaged in workshops with the Orquestra, and finally presented a concert to benefit this fledgling youth orchestra program. The final concert of the tour was shared with the Orquestra Sinfonica Juvenil, a premier youth orchestra in Lisbon.
In June of 2012, ESYO embarked on a first ever rour to Asia, performing several concerts in both China and Korea.
In 2008, ESYO Symphony Orchestra performed concerts in historic halls in Eisenach and Ilmenau, Germany; Salzburg, Austria; and Prague, Czech Republic. Two of the four concerts were benefits: proceeds from the Eisenach concert benefited the Deutsche Epilepsievereinigung (German Epilepsy Association); in Salzburg, the proceeds were donated to the Salzburger Hilfswerk, a local organization that provides a wide range of services including meals on wheels for seniors, support in nursing homes, day care centers, counseling and education programs for families, youth programs, and emergency contact services.
While in Ilmenau, ESYO musicians met and performed with members of a German youth orchestra.
During the tour, the orchestra gave the German, Austrian, and Czech national premieres of A Bridge to Understanding, by composer and Juilliard professor Samuel Adler. The piece, which was commissioned by ESYO, had its world premiere when the Symphony Orchestra performed it during ESYO’s March New Music Festival at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Dr. Adler traveled with the Symphony Orchestra on the European Tour.