Welcome to the Saratoga Springs Youth Orchestra
In 1999 Laurie Stephenson started SSYO with the vision of making it into the best youth orchestra anywhere. Our mission of providing talented youth musicians the means to rehearse and perform under professional leadership.
Under Maestro Longobardi’s leadership, the Saratoga Springs Youth Orchestra is continuing that mission. Maestro Longobardi shares the Board’s goal of developing a world-class youth orchestra capable of performing beautifully over a range of music styles.
Maestro Longbardi comes to us with years of experience and training. His involvement with Master Classes and working with young musicians and commitment to excellence gave us the confidence that he was the right person to lead our orchestra.
He also beings an unusual and exciting repertoire for the orchestra to perform. Not only is he versed in the standard repertoire, he is also the President and Artistic Director of the Neapolitan Music Society. The society seeks to promote and give renewed voice to the lost musical masterpieces of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Naples.
Maestro Longobardi’s Unique Approach
“My goal is to provide young musicians an environment in which to grow and mature into fine young musicians,” Maestro Longobardi continued, “this is achieved by individual training within the orchestra. My approach is to have each musician achieve competence while making beautiful music and feel a sense of pride. They are all rising stars on the path of musical development.”
SSYO affords young musicians the opportunity to study, rehearse, and perform compositions in an orchestra under the auspices and training of myself and other professional musician.
My v
ision, along with the Board of SSYO is to create an orchestra based on the teaching orchestras I experienced at the Orchestra Scarlatti, in Naples, Italy and the Consevatorio di Musica San Pietro Majella, where teachers are part of the orchestra working alongside their students. This method affords the students orchestral training in a teaching environment where they become well-trained “orchestral musicians.”
My teacher always told me “the chair doesn’t make the musician”, hard work and the humbleness to learn does. Music is very complex. I learn every day and at each rehearsal, I want these young musicians to take that lesson into whatever profession they choose.”
“I was given high level training in an environment that was nurturing and noncompetitive but with expectations of technical and emotional growth” Maestro Longobardi explained, “that is the way young musicians progress into understanding music and all its complexities.”
We hope you will sign up for our newsletters to receive information on all our events. Please come and enjoy our concerts and support the efforts of these very talented young musicians.
For a $15. donation to Saratoga Springs Youth Orchestra you will receive a copy of the First Night concert. The orchestra performed works of Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Giordani and Porpora. Listen to excerpts here on the site.
