[ meetings ]

[ meetings (upcoming) ]

Next EFNYO General Assembly

EFNYO will organise its next GA in Bucharest (Romania) between May 16 - 19, 2013 hosted by our Romanian member, the Orchestra Romana de Tineret - The National Youth Orchestra of Romania. The conference will focus on EFNYO membership development but also highlight topics around music education and the music profession in Romania while aiming to enhance the development of EFNYO cooperation projects in South Eastern European countries. For this purpose, a round table (open to public) including a press conference will be held on Saturday, May 18^st, with guests from Romania and other European countries.
With regard to the new European cultural programme 2014-2020 "Creative Europe" the EFNYO has invited Ms. Julia Pouply from Culture Action Europe to report on the new programme.

For more information about this event, please take direct contact with the EFNYO office at info@efnyo.org.

[ meetings (previous) ]

EFNYO General Assembly in Apeldoorn, November 15 - 18, 2012

The last EFNYO GA was held in Apeldoorn between November 15-18, 2012, the meeting was hosted by our Dutch member, the NJO/ Dutch Orchestra and Ensemble Academy. On the first day the EFNYO was delighted to host a one-day workshop on private fundraising held by Philip Spedding from Arts&Business, London.
Furthermore the agenda included presentations by the NJO and its partners, application for new membership (Verbier Festival Orchestra), changes within the EFNYO board as well as the working programme 2013, which includes for the first time the invitation to site visits between our orchestra managers.
The EFNYO also introduced the "EFNYO honorary membership", offered to ex-representatives of member orchestras, who served as former presidents or board members. Honorary members are Maria Karwowska, Ayis Ioannides, Arthur van Dijk, Richard Chester as well as Joanna Crooks.

The discussion on "Challenges for orchestras in the 21st century" included presentations of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the OFJ and the JONDE.

Please feel free to contact us should you require more detailed information about any of the topics mentioned above.

EFNYO Board / MusXchange Working Group Meeting in Aix-en-Provence

The last board meeting in Aix-en-Provence in September 2012 was also a MusXchange working group meeting. Focus of discussion were the new MusXchange programme, the EFNYO working programme 2013, the EFNYO GA in Apeldoorn and the cooperation with EFNYO orchestras and the Youth Orchestra series at the Grand Théâtre in Aix-en-Provence. The NYOs from France, Italy, Spain and Iraqwill perform at the festival in September 2013.



EFNYO Board / MusXchange Working Group Meeting in Fiesole (Italy) from March 9 - 11, 2012
 
According to the full agenda of this strategic meeting, the EFNYO board discussed the working programme for 2012, the MusXchange application for the period 2012-14, plans and ideas for the EFNYO GA in Helsinki in May/June 2012 and EFNYOs participation in the POLIFONIA working group of the AEC.

Furthermore the board appointed a new EFNYO secretary, Ms. Lucie Faggiani. Lucie comes from Cannes, France, and studied Communications and European Media Culture in Lyon (FR) and Weimar (DE), and Cultural Management at the Musikhochschule Hamburg (DE).

The meeting was kindly hosted at the Scuola di Musica, Fiesole, by the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana (OGI).

 

EFNYO General Assembly in Brussels, November 17 - 20, 2011

In November 2011, EFNYO held its second General Assembly in Brussels (Belgium).

The highlight  of the conference, which was the closing event of the MusXchange programme 2009-11, was held on Friday Nov. 18th at Brussels Flagey in the presence of EFNYO members, candidate members, and guests Jean Philippe Gammel of the EU DG Education and Culture, and Rose Lowry of the Orchestra Network for Europe (ONE).

For the final report and evaluation of MusXchange, EFNYO president Renate Böck presented a video with impressions from rehearsals and concerts of EFNYO orchestras in France, Austria, and Italy, and from EFNYO meetings in Frankfurt, Paris, and Vienna. The video is based on interviews with president Renate Böck, MusXchange musicians and EFNYO managers. Pierre Barrois, EFNYO vice-president, presented an evaluation of the programme based on more than 110 questionnaires from players of 14 different nationalities taking part in the programme. In the following discussion, EFNYO managers gave live reports about their experiences with MusXchange, and summarised the results of the exchange programme from the point of view of the sending and hosting orchestras.

With regard to membership applications, EFNYO is delighted to welcome two new full members, the National Youth Orchestra of Romania, represented by its artistic director and manager, Marin Cazacu, and the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO), former associate member since 2009. Another candidate member, the National Danish Youth Ensemble, was presented by Morten Ryelund, an official application will follow in 2012.

Due to difficulties between the National Youth Orchestra of Turkey (UGSO), present EFNYO member, and the newly established Turkish National Youth Philharmonic founded by Cem Mansur, the GA decided to suspend the membership of UGSO for one year, and defer the decision on the application of the Turkish National Youth Philharmonic by one year at least, until the situation becomes more transparent with regard to the national status of both orchestras.

EFNYO applied for another mobility grant for 2012-14 (following the EU pilot project which ended in Nov. 2011) under the EU Culture Programme.

EFNYO also organised a one-day training seminar for its managers on the use of Social media for orchestras led by Ulrike Schmid (Germany) and Marc van Bree (Netherlands/ USA).

EFNYO General Assembly in Frankfurt, April 29  May 1, 2011

As one of the five major goals formulated in the EFNYO working programme 2011-13, the spring conference 2011 marked the beginning of a three years process focusing on visions and strategies for pre-professional youth orchestras to meet the challenges for orchestras in the 21st century.

The meeting was hosted by Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, pioneers in the fields of programming, audience development, marketing and social media (www.jdph.de) and was held at their offices in Frankfurt, Germany.

For the two sessions on Saturday, April 30, 15.00-18.30, and Sunday May 1, 10.00-13.30, we welcomed four high-profile guest speakers to visualise the tasks ahead of us and the strategies to develop to fulfil EFNYOs role as a platform of exchange for shaping the future of symphonic music.

The presentations given were followed by round table discussions and focused on the following topics:

Karsten Witt (founder of Deutsche Ensembleakademie, head of Karsten Witt Musikmanagement, Berlin)
Visions for youth orchestras  From orchestra practice to best practice

Roland Diry (general manager of Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt)
Programming and audience development in contemporary music

Carole Main (director of Live Music Now, Edinburgh), and Yvonne Paterson, LMN musician
Live Music Now  a starting point for a fulfilling and successful career in the music profession

Sabrina Haane (manager at Orchesterzentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dortmund)
Innovative models for orchestra training and practice

Next to reports about activities of the network in the past months, the agenda also included the amendment of the EFNYO statutes and board elections for the next two years.

We are delighted to inform you that the new EFNYO statutes were adopted unanimously with the votes of 10 full members present or represented, and that the new  and enlarged - EFNYO board was elected as follows:

Renate Böck, president
Pierre Barrois, vice-president
Saulo Muniz, treasurer
Maria Karwowska, secretary
Julian Clayton, board member
Alexa Nieschlag, board member (representing the associate members/international YOs)
Paul MacAlindin, board member (representing the cooperating members/overseas YOs)

We are also pleased to announce that the application for associate membership of the Philharmonie der Animato Stiftung (Switzerland) was approved by the General Assembly.

Please note the dates of our next General Assembly:

Nov. 18 - 20, 2011, EFNYO Conference/ MusXchange closing event, Brussels, Belgium
For this conference we also plan to hold a seminar on "The use of social media for orchestras" with two experts from Germany and the USA, which is at the moment projected for the first day, Friday Nov. 18.

For more information about this event, please take direct contact with the EFNYO office at info@efnyo.org.





EFNYO General Assembly in Paris, Cité de la Musique, November 19-21, 2010

The GA in Nov. 2010 focused on the reports and evaluation of the EFNYO mobility pilot project MusXchange.
This included an analysis of the interim results of the co-organisers and feedback from the musicians' questionnaires.

The conference was hosted by the Orchestre Français des Jeunes, and took place at the Cité de la Musique in Paris.

Presentations of local guests were given by Bénédicte Dumeige of France Festivals, Laure Marcel-Berlioz of the Documentation Centre for Contemporary Music, and Dominique Bluzet of the Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix.
Lucia di Cecca (Conservatoire of Frosinone, Italy) introduced the project Working with Music, a mobility programme
for young graduates of Italian conservatoires funded under the EU Leonardo programme.

The EFNYO was delighted to welcome three new organisations as cooperating members: the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, represented by Paul MacAlindin, Aldeburgh Festivals-Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme (UK) represented by Marie Bennell,, and the South African National Youth Orchestra Foundation (SANYO) represented by Sophia Welz.

On Saturday November 20, 15.00 - 18.30h, a public panel discussion was held at the Cité de la Musique, which was entitled:
Moving from education to the profession: The challenges of the mobility of orchestra musicians in Europe

The event was co-hosted by the Association Française des Orchestres (AFO) within their programme "Orchestres en Fête".

Next to EFNYO speakers Renate Böck (president) and Pierre Barrois (vice-president), panel guests included Philippe Fanjas of the Association Française des Orchestres (AFO), Gretchen Amussen of the Association Européenne des Conservatoires (AEC), Anne Poursin of the French Ministry of Communication and Culture, Rose Lowry of the Orchestra Network of Europe (ONE) accompanied by musician Vincent Defunre of the Orchestre de Picardie, and two musicians of the OFJ who took part in the project MusXchange, Oriane Riballet and Adrien Ramon. The two panels were moderated by French journalist and musician Antoine Pecqueur.



EFNYO General Assembly in Madrid, March 05-07, 2010

The EFNYO held its first General Assembly in 2010 between March 05-07 in Madrid. The meeting was hosted by the JONDE, the national youth orchestra of Spain, and took place at the Auditorio Nacional de la Música.

Next to EFNYO full and associate members, we welcomed the following guests: José Manuel López López and Jesús Clavero representing the Auditorio Nacional de la Música, Paul MacAlindin of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, Sophia Welz of the South African National Youth Orchestra and Marie Benell of the Aldeburgh Festival (GB).

The discussion focused mainly on the collaboration between EFNYO and the Auditorio Nacional de la Música and further concert halls in Spain. Furthermore our guests were invited to present their youth orchestra initiatives. The Youth State Orchestra of Armenia was welcomed as new associate member. The orchestra was founded in November 2005, its members are students of the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory. It has been financed by the Ministry of Culture since 2008. The founder and artistic director of the orchestra is young violinist and conductor, Sergey Smbatyan.

Following the working group meeting on the EFNYO pilot project MusXchange in December 2009 in Utrecht, NL, participants discussed further steps regarding the implementation and evaluation of the project.

Election of the board 2010/11:
President: Renate Böck (Wiener Jeunesse Orchester)
Vice-President: Pierre Barrois (Orchestre Francais des Jeunes)
Treasurer: Saulo Muniz-Schwochert (Joven Orquesta Nacional de Espana)
Secretary: Maria Karwowska (Sinfonia Iuventus)



EFNYO General Assembly in Warsaw, October 09-11, 2009

The EFNYO General Assembly took place between October 09-11, 2010 in Warsaw, PL, and was hosted by the new EFNYO member Sinfonia Iuventus Warsaw.

Local guests participating at the meeting included Elzbieta Penderecka of the Ludwig van Beethoven Association, Elisa Kujan representing the Department of International Relations, Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Aleksandar Laskowski and Lukas Strusinski of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and Robert Kamyk of TVP Cultura.

Next to the focus on the collaboration with Polish promoters, the agenda included the presentation of new national and international youth orchestra initiatives: Anna Ter-Hovakimyan of the Youth State Orchestra of Armenia, Paul MacAlindin of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, Olive Kan of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, Kim Gaynor of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, Matthew Jones of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, Konstantin Peiper of the Junges Klangforum Mitte Europa and Agnieszka Ostapowicz of the Junge Deutsch-Polnische Philharmonie Niederschlesien.


General Assembly of EFNYO in Zilina/ SK, April 24-26, 2009

In 2009 the first general assembly of EFNYO took place between April 24-26, 2009 in Zilina, Slovakia within the framework of the Central European Music Festival.

The meeting was attended by a majority of full and associate members, as well as the following guests: Maria Karwowska of Sinfonia Iuventus Warsaw, Thomas Hummel and Alexa Nieschlag of Baltic Youth Philharmonic, Jerome Thiebaux of the Orchestre National de Lyon and Elisabeth Grabner, a music coach and mental trainer from Austria. The extension of the EFNYO to new EU countries is one of EFNYO's major concerns and therefore the EFNYO was pleased to welcome three new members: the Sinfonia Iuventus Warsaw, the National Youth Orchestra of Cyprus and the Baltic Youth Philharmonic.
A major topic of the meeting was "How to shape the careers of future orchestra musicians" and therefore we had invited the following guests from Slovakia: Olga Smetanova and Ivana Korbackova of the Music Centre Bratislava, Marian Lejava, artistic director and conductor of the Academy of Music Bratislava and Vladimir Salaga, orchestra director of the Zilina Sinfonietta.

Agenda:

• Election of the board 2009/10:
  The following board members were elected:
  President: Renate Böck (Wiener Jeunesse Orchester)
  Vice-President: Pierre Barrois (Orchestre Francais des Jeunes)
  Treasurer: Saulo Muniz-Schwochert (Joven Orquesta Nacional de Espana)
  Secretary: Maria Karwowska (Sinfonia Iuventus)
  Member of the board: Stefano Fantini (Orchestra Giovanile Italiana)
  
  
• New members:
  
  Sinfonia Iuventus Warsaw
  The new full member of EFNYO is the Polish orchestra Sinfonia Iuventus Warsaw. Founded in 2007, the orchestra works with students and graduates of music academies from all over Poland. The orchestra offers full-time positions and musicians become permanent employees until they reach the age of 30. The aim of the orchestra for the year 2009 was to focus on education and continue to cooperate with great artists.
  
  Baltic Youth Philharmonic
  The new associate member Baltic Youth Philharmonic was founded in cooperation with the Usedom Music Festival (Germany) and involves the ten countries around the Baltic Sea. The concerts take place on the island of Usedom but also in other Baltic countries. The founding conductor of the initiative, Kristjan Järvi has the aim of enhancing musical and human exchange: "A New Voice in the North". The orchestra held its first audition in March 2009 and is open to all musicians enrolled at a music academy in one of the countries around the Baltic Sea.
  
  Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra
  The Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra was established in 1987 and has been taken over by the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra Foundation, an initiative of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus, in 2007. As Cyprus still lacks the tradition of Western European Music which also inlcudes training for orchestra and studying orchestral instruments, the national government intended to improve the situation by supporting the idea of a national youth orchestra. The musicians rehearse every Saturday morning and during the summer months, two residential courses are organised. The first course is a master class, and during the second one the best students form an international youth symphony orchestra. The coaches come from all over Europe.
  
  
  
Working Group Meeting "Network Development" April 2009 in Zilina, Slovakia

The meeting took place during the EFNYO General Assembly in Zilina and focused on network development especially to Slovakian music institutions. As the meeting took place within the framework of the Central European Music Festival, EFNYO members had the opportunity of meeting representatives of the Cultural Ministry and were able to launch an initiative for the foundation of a National Youth Orchestra in Slovakia.

Working Group Meeting "EFNYO PR and Communication" June 2009 in Berlin, Germany

The corporate identity of the EFNYO needs reshaping and clear presentation. Information about our activities must be distributed more effectively and attractively to defined target groups. The main question "What are the aims of the federation?" resulted in three answers: to represent a label of quality, to form a platform of exchange of information for managers/musicians, and to establish a reference point for institutions related to the sectors of music education, music profession, and cultural politics. The next steps to be taken will be to re-write our mission statement, to find a new slogan, to redesign the website, to find new communication tools and to extend our relationship to journalists and media, and link these to any future event or publication of the federation.

Working Group Meeting "Project development with promoters and festivals" September 2009 in Madrid, Spain

With the aim of reinforcing the contacts established at the EFNYO General Assembly in Vienna in November 2008, the federation focused on the project presented by Jose Manuel Lopez Lopez, artistic director of the Auditorio Nacional de Musica de Madrid. He launched the idea of creating a cycle of youth orchestra concerts in Madrid with the possibility of follow-up concerts in various Spanish concert venues. For this purpose, Jose Manuel invited a series of directors of Spanish auditorios to participate in the meeting in order to present this project and the idea of involving the member orchestras of EFNYO. EFNYO was asked to coordinate activities by acting as an information platform between the orchestras and the Spanish auditorios.
In order to develop and strengthen the contacts to the directors of Spanish concert halls, EFNYO decided to hold its next General Assembly between March 5-7, 2010 in Madrid to give all our members the opportunity to establish personal contacts to promoters in Madrid and other cities in Spain, such as Zaragoza, Barcelona, Valencia, Murcia, Oviedo, Cuenca, Valladolid, San Sebastian, etc.