Portland Youth Philharmonic

The Portland Youth Philharmonic Association is an organization of several orchestras made up of young people from ages 7 to 22 in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1924 as the Portland Junior Symphony and is the oldest established youth orchestra in the United States. It is currently led by recently appointed conductor and music director David Hattner.
==History==
The roots of the ensemble go back to Harney County, Oregon. In 1910, Mary V. Dodge, a violinist and music teacher, moved to Burns. After securing funding from local businessmen and Portland attorney and writer Charles Erskine Scott Wood, she purchased instruments for local children and organized them into an ensemble called the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra. The group played its first concert in 1912. The ensembled toured Oregon until 1918, when Dodge moved to Portland. In Portland, Dodge founded another youth orchestra, the Irvington School Orchestra. This ensemble became the nucleus of Portland Junior Symphony which was formed in 1924.
==Organization==
(PYP) consists of four ensembles: the Portland Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, the Portland Youth Conservatory Orchestra, the Portland Youth Wind Ensemble, and the Young String Ensemble. Each group is selected in open auditions in the spring and fall and is highly selective.
Past repertoires have included: Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra & Miraculous Mandarin, Brahms' Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4, Bruckner's Symphony No. 4, Debussy's La Mer, Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1 & 5, Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 & Romeo and Juliet, Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances & Piano Concerto No. 3, Respighi's Pines of Rome, Tchaikovsky's Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, and Stravinsky's Petrouchka & Rite of Spring.
Past conductors and music directors include Jacques Gershkovitch (1923–1953), Jacob Avshalomov (1953–1994), Huw Edwards (1995–2002), and Mei-Ann Chen (2002–2007).
==Tours==
The Philharmonic has gone on eight international tours:
1970 - England, Portugal, and Italy; 
1979 - Japan; 
1984 - Yugoslavia and Austria; 
1989 - Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Germany; 
1992 - Japan and Korea; 
1994 - Germany; 
2000 - New Zealand and Australia; 
2007 - Taiwan and Korea
In 1998 the Portland Youth Philharmonic also represented the United States at the Banff International Festival of Youth Orchestras.
==References==
==Further reading==
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==External links==
*Portland Youth Philharmonic website
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Category:Portland Youth Philharmonic
Category:American orchestras
Category:Culture of Portland, Oregon
Category:Musical groups established in 1924
Category:Organizations based in Portland, Oregon
Category:Youth orchestras