Ryan McAdams, Music Director
"The New York Youth Symphony...often gets compared to professional orchestras, and one can hear why. Its music making is alive and full; its players are thoroughly prepared and very able...they have a freshness and a drive that seasoned ensembles are going to rediscover only very occasionally."
The New York Times
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Rehearsals |
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Rehearsals take place for four hours each Sunday afternoon from September
through May at various locations in Manhattan. |
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Meet the Maestros |
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Twice a year, sectional rehearsals are led by members of the New York
Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, or the American Symphony
Orchestra. Alan Gilbert and James DePreist were the guest conductors for the 2007-08 season. |
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Weekend KICKOFF Retreat |
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This year's annual retreat takes place October 2-4, 2009.
Surrounded by 4,500 acres of forested beauty at a Catskill Mountains facility,
musicians participate in intensive rehearsals, with free time for hiking,
sports, movies, practicing, and relaxing.
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First Music World Premières |
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Every season, the orchestra gives world premières of three pieces written by
young American composers. Orchestra members collaborate with today's most gifted
young composers in a unique opportunity for both composer and player to realize
musical dreams, and to surmount the challenges of giving the world a new work of
art. Orchestra soloists of The Roy and Shirley Durst Début series perform these premières. |
| Fellowships |
| Fellowships are offered each season to principal string, wind, brass, and
percussion players. Fellows have unique responsibilities and make a commitment
for additional performances. |
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Note: Prospective applicants are urged to review the Musician Guidelines
and check for scheduling conflicts before applying for an audition.
Contact us to receive an audition brochure. |
Ryan McAdams, Music Director
Twenty-seven year old conductor Ryan McAdams is the 15th Music Director of the New York Youth Symphony. A Fulbright scholar, he previously served as Apprentice Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic under the tutelage of then-Chief Conductor (now Music Director-Designate of the New York Philharmonic) Alan Gilbert. In 2007, he was invited by Lorin Maazel to create the post of Apprentice Conductor for the Chateauville Foundation at the Maazel Estate in Virginia, assisting Maestro Maazel on a production of Britten's "The Rape of Lucretia" with singers from the MET Lindermann program.
This past summer, at the invitation of James Levine and the Tanglewood Festival, he served as one of Tanglewood's Conducting Fellows. Highlights included a performance of Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments with Peter Serkin, assisting Maestro Levine on a performance of Act III of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg," and a performance of John Zorn's violin concerto "Contes de Fees" which will be commercially released by the composer.
Highlights of the 2009-2010 season include appearances with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, New York City Opera, Princeton Symphony, Tanglewood Music Festival, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, in addition to his three Carnegie Hall performances with the NYYS. Recent performances include appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, the Wordless Music Series, New Jersey Symphony, Glimmerglass Opera, Rutgers University, and the Juilliard FOCUS! Festival. He also served as cover conductor to David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony at Carnegie Hall in performances of the U.S. Premiere of John Adams' "Doctor Atomic Symphony" and Messiaen's "Turangalila" Symphony, and as assistant conductor to Anne Manson at the Juilliard Opera Center for the New York premiere of Ned Rorem's "Our Town."
Mr. McAdams will make his subscription European debut in Februrary, 2010, with the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale in Florence. He will return to Italy in 2011 for concerts with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI.
After two years as a conducting student at Aspen, he became the first-ever recipient of the Glimmerglass-Aspen Prize for Opera and Vocal Conducting, having been nominated by both David Zinman and Glimmerglass Opera. As a result of the award, he served as Assistant Conductor for Glimmerglass Opera's 2007 season. In 2008, he returned to Aspen to serve as the Assistant Conductor of the Festival.
Ryan McAdams was the first Masters student accepted into the Juilliard conducting program by James DePreist, and is a recipient of the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship. A native of St. Louis, he received his M.M. in Orchestral Conducting from the Juilliard School in 2006, and a B.M. in Piano Performance from Indiana University in 2004. For more information, please visit http://www.ryan-mcadams.com/
Mark Seto, Assistant Conductor
Mark Seto leads a wide-ranging musical life as a conductor, scholar, teacher, and violinist. He is the founding music director of Morningside Opera, conductor of the Chelsea Symphony, and the assistant conductor of the New York Youth Symphony. He has also served as the assistant conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and the Columbia University Orchestra. Recent engagements include a collaboration with actor David Hyde Pierce and the Chelsea Symphony, and the western hemisphere premiere of Hasse and Metastasio’s Alcide al bivio with Morningside Opera.
Mark holds a BA in Music from Yale University and an MA and MPhil in Historical Musicology from Columbia University. He studied at the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Maine, where he served as an assistant to music director Michael Jinbo for two seasons. His conducting teachers include Lawrence Leighton Smith and Shinik Hahm, and he has participated in workshops with Kenneth Kiesler, Daniel Lewis, Donald Portnoy, Donald Thulean, and Paul Vermel. He was the 2003 recipient of the Yale Friends of Music Prize and has been honored with an ASCAP Morton Gould award. He teaches in the Music Department at Columbia University, where he is a PhD candidate in Historical Musicology. His research focuses on symphonic culture in fin-de-siècle Paris.
The core teaching programs of the New York Youth Symphony are made possible through leading support of the Surdna Foundation