Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival Returns, with 500 Young Musicians

In Monday’s (1/8) San Francisco Classical Voice, Emily Wilson writes, “One of the highlights of Ron Gallman’s job as director of education programs for the San Francisco Symphony is the Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival. This year more than ever, he’s looking forward to hearing the California Youth Symphony, Golden State Youth Orchestra, Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and Young People’s Symphony Orchestra play at Davies Symphony Hall. The festival started in 2009, and Gallman says it was so successful that the SF Symphony decided to host it every couple of years. The last festival performance was in January 2020, right before the pandemic. There was no festival in 2022, and now, after three years, Gallman says that the 500 or so young musicians coming together on Jan. 14 represent something particularly meaningful…. ‘Something like that is huge in terms of building a sense of community …’ Also significant to students, Gallman says, is that each participating youth orchestra donates a share of its proceeds from the festival to an organization of its choosing that helps the underserved youth in its area.”