Details of the 2011/2012 season announced and find out how you can get involved

The National Youth Orchestra of Ireland’s upcoming season offers unrivalled opportunities to learn and perform great symphonic music with new friends. Along the way you will be mentored by some of the finest professional orchestral musicians in Ireland and work under the baton of professional conductors.

Talking about conductors, yesterday, listeners to RTÉ lyric fm's Lunchtime Classics were given a preview of what is to come for the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland in their 2011/2012 season. Liz Nolan interviewed Zoe Keers, General Manager of NYOI, and Lukas O'Brien, oboist with NYOI and announced the very exciting news that Principal Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Alan Buribayev, is to conduct NYOI next summer! Buribayev's wonderful insight into Russian repertoire will make the learning and performance of Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 an incredible experience for Ireland's finest young musicians.


NYOI is proud of the thousands of young musicians who have graduated through our orchestras over the last 41 years and this year we are delighted to welcome back three NYOI Alumni of outstanding promise: Brian O’Kane (cello), Fiona Kelly (flute) and Jean Kelly (harp).

Sisters Fiona and Jean Kelly look forward to returning to NYOI next summer, this time as soloists in Mozart's Concerto for flute and harp. Fiona Kelly, who has been hailed by the New York Times as a player with “impressive technique and elegant musicianship”, recently completed her Master’s degree at The Juilliard School, New York, studying with Robert Langevin. Fiona won first prize in The Juilliard School Flute Competition and performed Bernstein’s ‘Halil’ with The Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky at The Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Lincoln Center. Jean Kelly leads a busy life as a professional harpist. Jean regularly tours with the Locrian Ensemble performing harp concertos and her own arrangements of Irish music and has recorded three CD's with the group. In 2011 Jean was invited to Dublin to play for the historic visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II. She has also played at Buckingham Palace for HRH Prince Charles' birthday and has played harp on several film scores including 'The Lord of the Rings'.

The first NYOI meeting of the season will take place, as usual, during the Christmas holidays. A new group of young musicians will once again start the season under the baton of NYOI's wonderful conductor Gearóid Grant to prepare for a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Bruch's Kol nidrei with cellist Brian O'Kane. A busy soloist and chamber musician, Brian came to prominence by taking first prize at the Windsor Festival International String Competition and is also a former prizewinner of the Haverhill Sinfonia and Royal Overseas League Competitions. In early 2008, Brian won the Prince’s Prize of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and is a former winner of the Accenture Bursary Award and Camerata Ireland Young Musician Award. In that same year, Brian performed with Camerata Ireland in Dublin’s National Concert Hall under Barry Douglas and with the Philharmonia Orchestra at Highgrove before the Prince of Wales. He recently appeared again with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy at the 2009 Windsor Festival.

NYOI's 2011/2012 Season promises to be the pinnacle of orchestral experience for young musicians ages 12-18 in Ireland. From exciting repertoire to inspirational conductors and soloists who started where you are - what are you waiting for?! Applications for audition open on Monday 5th September and close on Monday 17th October. Application forms will be available from our website on Monday 5th September.

We look forward to receiving your application!