Orchestra Europa is a pioneering UK-based organisation founded in 2006. Its aim is to change the lives of young people through the medium of classical music and to enhance the future of orchestral playing in Europe.
Through combining performance opportunities and educational initiatives, Orchestra Europa nurtures new talent in a supportive and motivating environment. Its programmes involve young people of diverse ages and backgrounds, from nursery-school pupils as young as four to post-graduate university students in their twenties.
The mainstay of Orchestra Europa is an ensemble of some 72 instrumentalists, all training at colleges and conservatoires and hoping to make a career in professional orchestras. Each musician, as a member of the Classical Futures programme, spends up to three years with Orchestra Europa, playing each season in a series of high-profile concerts scheduled to dovetail with the academic year.
In addition to gaining valuable performance experience, Orchestra Europa’s members receive mentoring from professional orchestral musicians, and – vitally – themselves tutor and mentor schoolchildren via the Europa Juniors programme. A further active and fulfilling role for the players lies in their outreach work with institutions such as prisons or care homes for the elderly.
Orchestra Europa was established by young British conductor Scott Ellaway following his experience in 2005 with the New World Symphony in Miami. This American orchestra is the brainchild of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and businessman Ted Arison. Each year the New World Symphony offers fellowships to student musicians who then embark on a three-year programme of education and performance. Currently, over 600 alumni play in numerous professional orchestras in America and around the world.
While not yet operating on a comparable scale, Orchestra Europa has already gained recognition for its unique and pioneering fusion of performance and education. The members of Orchestra Europa are all preparing to make the critical transition from student to professional. Through the Classical Futures programme they develop their own core skills while also furthering the cause of classical music by taking an active and fulfilling role in the education of schoolchildren aged from 4 to 18.
Orchestra Europa having already succeeded in establishing a virtuous circle of performance and education; is set to exert a positive influence on musical life for many years to come.
