About GYO

GYO was founded in 2006 as the resident orchestra of the Aberdeen International Youth Festival offering young musicians from across the Grampian region the opportunity to come together for an intensive summer course working with respected tutors and conductors.

2016 saw the orchestra embark on a 10th-anniversary tour with performances in Ghent Belgium, Düsseldorf Germany and Maastricht Holland. 

The orchestra has also worked with a number of distinguished soloists and more recently has established a concerto competition which offers the winner the opportunity to perform with the orchestra. Amy Birse was the first winner in 2017 performing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.  

Muang Luangvisut won the concerto competition in 2020 and was due to perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the orchestra as part of a tour to Berlin in Germany.  Unfortunately, the 2020-22 courses were unable to be held due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We are planning to reschedule our tour to Berlin for 2025.

The management team is made up of a group of highly experienced musicians and organisers. Aden Mazur, Team Leader, has been the Chair of Aberdeen City Orchestra (ACO) since 2016 and is an active and busy musician performing with a number of local ensembles. In his role as Chair of ACO, he also runs the ACO Youth Ensembles aimed at young musicians from Grade 2+.