Treat your family to an afternoon at the San Francisco Symphony. Receive premium tickets for Sunday May 17 at 2:00pm (5 side box seats on section F - seats 2-6).

Davies Symphony Hall for the Youth Orchestra Series, Donato Cabrera conductor, program is John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine. 

The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra is one of the finest ensembles of its kind, anywhere. For three decades, the Youth Orchestra has delighted audiences at home and abroad. Don't miss this inspiring concert, performed by more than one hundred of the Bay Areas most talented young instrumentalists.

Thrill to the artistry of these gifted young musicians as they explore great music!

Over the last 34 years, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) has earned a reputation as one of the finest youth ensembles in the world. Founded in 1981 to provide pre-professional training to the Bay Area’s most gifted young musicians, the orchestra has toured Europe and Asia to rave reviews, winning the prestigious City of Vienna Prize at the International Youth and Music Festival in 1986 and performing to packed houses in the great halls of Europe, from Berlin’s Philharmonie to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw to the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. It has played for Queen Elizabeth II of England and been featured on BBC radio. The orchestra’s acclaimed recordings include Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 recorded live at Davies Symphony Hall in 1994, and a live recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 made at Prague’s Dvorak Hall in 1998.

Today, the orchestra features 108 musicians. Three times that many audition for the ensemble, which rehearses with Donato to Cabrera Saturday afternoons on the Davies Symphony Hall stage after the Symphony coaches work intensively with the musicians in sectional rehearsals. The orchestra typically performs five concerts a year at Davies Symphony Hall in repertoire that ranges from Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 to Mason Bates' Garages of the Valley and John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine.