Join us for this showcase of young talent as youth orchestras from around the Bay Area convene for an afternoon of music making. Experience the exhilaration of hundreds of young musicians performing at their best. Tickets are half price for ages 17 and under.
Proceeds from the concert will benefit organizations that provide resources to underserved and homeless youth. Each participating youth orchestra will select an organization within its local community.
Artists
El Camino Youth Symphony
Golden Gate Philharmonic
Reno Philharmonic Youth Orchestra
Conductor, Wattis Foundation Music Director
Program
Enigma Variations
Academic Festival Overture
Serenade for Strings, Waltz and Finale
The Rhyme of Taigu
Symphony No. 4, Finale
Rhapsody in Blue
Symphony No. 7, Mvt. IV
San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra
The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra is recognized internationally as one of the finest youth orchestras in the world. Founded by the San Francisco Symphony in 1981, the SFSYO’s musicians are chosen from more than 300 applicants in annual auditions. The SFSYO’s purpose is to provide an orchestral experience of pre-professional caliber, tuition-free, to talented young musicians. The more than 100 musicians, ranging in age from 12 to 21, represent communities from throughout the Bay Area. The SFSYO rehearses and performs at Davies Symphony Hall under the direction of Radu Paponiu, who joined the San Francisco Symphony as Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in the 2024–25 season. Jahja Ling served as the SFSYO’s first Music Director, followed by David Milnes, Leif Bjaland, Alasdair Neale, Edwin Outwater, Benjamin Shwartz, Donato Cabrera, Christian Reif, and Daniel Stewart.
As part of the SFSYO’s innovative training program, musicians from the San Francisco Symphony coach the young players each Saturday afternoon in sectional rehearsals, followed by full orchestra rehearsals with Daniel Stewart. Youth Orchestra members regularly meet and work with world-renowned artists: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt, Kurt Masur, John Adams, Yo-Yo Ma, Valery Gergiev, Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, Wynton Marsalis, Midori, Joshua Bell, Mstislav Rostropovich, Simon Rattle, and many others have worked with the Youth Orchestra. Of equal importance, Youth Orchestra members are able to speak with these prominent musicians about their professional and personal experiences, and about music. The ensemble has toured Europe and Asia, given sold-out concerts in such legendary halls as Berlin’s Philharmonie, Vienna’s Musikverein, Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and won first prize in Vienna’s International Youth and Music Festival.
Radu Paponiu, Music Director
Radu Paponiu was appointed Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra at the beginning of the 2024–25 season. He recently completed a five-year tenure as associate conductor of the Naples (Florida) Philharmonic and a seven-year tenure as music director of the Naples Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. He has also served as music director of the Southwest Florida Symphony, assistant conductor of the Naples Philharmonic, and as a member of the conducting faculty of the Juilliard Pre-College.
As a guest conductor, Paponiu has appeared with the Romanian National Radio Symphony, Teatro Comunale di Bologna Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, Rockford Symphony, California Young Artists Symphony, and National Repertory Orchestra. He has collaborated with soloists such as Evgeny Kissin, Yefim Bronfman, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Midori, Vladimir Feltsman, Robert Levin, Charles Yang, Nancy Zhou, Stella Chen, and the Ébène Quartet.
Born in Romania, Paponiu began his musical studies on the violin at age seven, came to the United States at the invitation of the Perlman Music Program, and later completed two degrees in violin performance at the Colburn School. He went on to earn a master’s degree in orchestral conducting at New England Conservatory, where he studied with Hugh Wolff.
Young People’s Symphony Orchestra
Celebrating its 87th season in 2023–24, Young People’s Symphony Orchestra is the oldest youth orchestra in California and the first independent youth orchestra in the nation. YPSO was founded in Berkeley in 1936 by Jessica Marcelli, a pioneering woman who was bold enough to create a space for young musicians to hone their craft, while also making a career for herself at a time when it was rare to see a woman conductor. YPSO has developed the musical talents and skills of thousands of students in the Bay Area, serving musicians in 31 cities and seven counties including Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano, and Sonoma. Many YPSO alumni are internationally distinguished musicians and prominent community members.
David Ramadanoff, Music Director
David Ramadanoff has been music director and conductor of Young People’s Symphony Orchestra since 1989. He began his professional studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Temple University, and was a doctoral candidate at
the Juilliard School until Seiji Ozawa offered him the position of Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony. He performed regularly on the San Francisco Symphony subscription series, continuing as Associate Conductor under Edo de Waart. He developed and strengthened the Symphony’s educational programs and community concerts.
In 1980 Mr. Ramadanoff won the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award and in 1982 made his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony. He served as director of orchestral activities at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1984 to 1988 as well as principal conductor of the SFCM Orchestra. He has also appeared with the Kansas City Philharmonic, North Carolina Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Napa Symphony, Santa Cruz Symphony, and Fort Collins Symphony. In addition to YPSO, Mr. Ramadanoff is music director of the Master Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra and conductor of the California Sound Collective. He previously served as music director of the Vallejo Symphony.
Conductor, Wattis Foundation Music Director
Recipient of Aspen Music Festival’s 2010 James Conlon Conducting Prize, Daniel Stewart is Music Director of the Santa Cruz Symphony. He has conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Frankfurt Opera-Orchestra, and the Boston Ballet. He joins the San Francisco Symphony as Resident Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) in the 2019-20 season.
In 2012, the Metropolitan Opera appointed Mr. Stewart the first conductor of their Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. In 2013, he made his Lincoln Center debut in a Metropolitan Opera produced concert of comic operas by Stravinsky, Mozart, Donizetti, and Berlioz. During his tenure with the Metropolitan Opera, he studied with then-music director James Levine, coached singers, and conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and soloists in a comprehensive range of the operatic repertory, including scenes from Norma, Benvenuto Cellini, Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, L'elisir d'amore, Don Pasquale, Pagliacci, Idomeneo, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Il barbiere di Siviglia, L’italiana in Algeri, Ariadne auf Naxos, The Rake’s Progress, Simon Boccanegra, La traviata, Otello, Falstaff, Der Fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tristan und Isolde, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung.
Mr. Stewart and the Santa Cruz Symphony have performed with Yuja Wang, more than twenty principal singers from the Metropolitan Opera, established a thriving chamber music series, and expanded educational outreach programs. He has worked closely with contemporary composers such as the late Karlheinz Stockhausen, Esa-Pekka Salonen, HK Gruber, John Adams, and Thomas Adès, whom he assisted in preparing the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Aspects of Adès festival in 2011. An avid composer himself, Mr. Stewart's compositions have been performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Tribeca New Music Festival, and Verbier Festival.
Mr. Stewart is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller, with additional studies with Simon Rattle, Christoph Eschenbach, and Alan Gilbert. He has also concertized frequently as a viola soloist, and served as principal violist of numerous ensembles, including the New World Symphony (while also studying conducting with Michael Tilson Thomas), Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, and the Verbier Festival and Chamber Orchestras. He has performed as a violist with the San Francisco Symphony, recorded for EMI with Maxim Vengerov, and toured extensively in more than forty countries.
©2025 San Francisco Symphony | Privacy Statement & Terms and Conditions
