National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain-Apply
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain-Apply
NYO believes in inspiring its teenage members with a sense of personal responsibility for giving world-class performances. That starts with giving them fantastic role models. Together we’re building the future of orchestral music.
Playing in NYO can be a life-changing experience. As an NYO Musician, you make incredible music, try out new ideas with the brightest young musicians in the country, and work with accomplished tutors at an exceptionally high standard. But that’s not all. Being part of the Orchestra helps you develop as team players and young leaders, encourages you to pass on your skills to other teen musicians, and helps you become more confident in taking risks. Plus you’ll make some of the best friends you’ll ever meet along the way.
NYO wants to give the UK’s most dedicated young musicians every opportunity to participate in our vibrant, challenging orchestra. We look for musicians and composers who combine considerable technical aptitude and flair for orchestral playing with a taste for adventure, open minds and a great team spirit. Our musicians have a responsibility not simply for themselves as performers but for each other and as ambassadors, encouraging other young musicians to deepen their relationship with orchestral music.
As a strictly teenage orchestra, we have the following requirements:
You will need to be between 13 and 18 on 1 September 2020 in order to apply for NYO 2021.
Unless you’re applying as a composer, you should be at Grade 8 dstinction level or equivalent. You will either need a copy of your certificate or mark sheet, or a letter from your instrument or music teacher to provide written confirmation that you are of the required standard.
You are a British citizen, or resident or studying in the British Isles.
You are not studying full-time at a college of music, or on a joint course with a music college.
You are available for all of the rehearsal residencies, tour dates and performances and between 5-10 days of NYO Inspire activity. In addition, we may ask if you would like to attend other activities that come up throughout the year. These will be voluntary. For musicians in the orchestral keyboard section, we will rotate all of these dates as the repertoire dictates. We ask that all applicants are available for the complete NYO calendar at audition stage; you can see these NYO activity dates here.
When you complete your application, there is space to let us know about any availability issues you may have. Once you have been scheduled an audition slot, please let us know within four weeks if you cannot make this date, venue or time. We will do our best to reschedule any auditions, but have extremely limited flexibility.
All auditions are offered completely FREE. Once we are four weeks away from the date, cancelled places become very difficult to fill. The actual cost of auditions to us is around £150, so if you have to cancel your place at the last minute we will ask you to make a donation towards this cost. Exceptional circumstances are, of course, always acknowledged and this is a suggested donation.
We have travel bursaries available to help with costs to and from the audition venue.
The audition experience aims to be positive and constructive and all auditionees will receive a workshop and written feedback. Bursaries are also available to cover the full cost of a place in NYO.
Financial information: costs and assistance
We can help you be part of NYO.
NYO subsidises every seat in the orchestra to a manageable level. We raise over £1.8m so that we can do this. Also we ensure that free places are available to musicians who need them.
For NYO 2020, we ask for a contribution of £2,142 from each musician. The actual cost of being part of NYO is £8,000, so your contribution represents around a quarter, and equates to the cost of accommodation and travel on tour.
If you are offered a place in NYO and require financial assistance to cover the contribution our bursary scheme will help you. Depending on your financial circumstances we will fund all of the contribution or some of it. We can also guide you in applying for support from other organisations.
If you would like to help fund NYO bursaries, please contact our development team.