Music Director Allen Tinkham, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) Associate Concertmaster David Taylor and renowned cellist Stephen Balderston will lead up this exciting program which offers mentoring, leadership training, orchestral music instruction and chamber music coaching to CYSO’s first chair string instrumentalists. Participants will also receive full CYSO tuition scholarships. Musicians will compete for the opportunity to participate in this initiative and will perform in CYSO’s Symphony Orchestra, Encore Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Music Program.
“CYSO provides an experience and level of instruction that is rarely offered to young musicians. ‘Principal Players’ is a special once-in-a-life-time opportunity and I am happy to be a part of it. Participating students represent some of the best that the region has to offer. They reflect the talent, hard work and hours of practice that makes them the future of classical music and the very best at what they do in Chicago.” David Taylor, CSO Assistant Concertmaster
About Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO):
In 1946, a group of talented young musicians dreamed of a place where they could come together and perform the greatest orchestral works with other students who shared a love of music. Over sixty years and thousands of students later, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) is where the Chicago area’s best 7 to 18 year-old musicians begin their journey to become the classical musicians and leaders of tomorrow.
Principal Players Program Faculty
David Taylor, CYSO Symphony Orchestra Principal Players Program Advisor
Known to Chicago audiences as a versatile soloist, chamber player, and orchestral musician, violinist David Taylor joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as assistant concertmaster in 1979.
Born in Canton, Ohio, in 1949, David began to study violin with his father at the age of four. Later teachers included Margaret Randall and Rafael Druian at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School, where he earned both bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1974, David joined the Cleveland Orchestra, where he was a first violinist before he came to Chicago. He has made fourteen solo appearances with the CSO under Sir Georg Solti and Kenneth Jean. David also has served as acting concertmaster of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and as concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he is concertmaster of the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, the Ars Viva Chamber Orchestra, and the Park Ridge Symphony.
A lover of chamber music, David is the first violinist of the Pressenda Piano Trio and the Chicago Ensemble. He gives recitals throughout the Chicagoland area, performs on WFMT and at Ravinia, and appears as soloist with many local orchestras. He teaches privately and has students in orchestras across the United States and Japan.
Stephen Balderston, CYSO Symphony Orchestra Principal Players Chamber Music Coach, joined the DePaul School of Music faculty as String Coordinator and Professor of Cello after twenty successful years as an orchestra and chamber musician. Balderston was Assistant Principal Cello with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for ten years after ten years with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. He performed as soloist with both orchestras and was an artist-in-residence at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Balderston began his studies on the cello with Gabor Rejto in his native southern California, and earned both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Lynn Harrell.
Known internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and coach, Balderston regularly participates in clinics, chamber music concerts and festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad. In recent years, Balderston has performed solo works and chamber music with Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Christoph Eschenbach, Lynn Harrell, Yo-Yo Ma, Menahem Pressler, Gil Shaham, Joseph Silverstein and Pinchas Zukerman. He debuted as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2000. He has been a featured artist at the Ravinia Festival in Illinois, Bargemusic in New York City and the Affinis Music Festival in Japan. Additionally, he has participated in the OK Mozart International Festival in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the Santa Barbara Chamber Music Festival and the International Music Festival in Shanghai, China.
Balderston's summers have been spent performing and working with students at a variety of venues. Balderston was the cello coach for Daniel Barenboim's "West-Eastern Divan" workshops in 1999 and 2000 in Weimar, Germany, the 2001 Workshop held in Chicago, and the 2004 Workshop in Seville, Spain. In 2002 he accompanied a group of colleagues to Shanghai, China for that city's international music festival. In August of 2004 Balderston was featured as lecturer, soloist and coach at the International String Music Festival in Taipei, Taiwan. Since 2002, he has been a teacher, coach and soloist at a number of prestigious summer venues, including the Marrowstone Music Festival, the International Festival – Institute at Round Top, the ARIA International Festival and the Northwestern University High School Institute.
CYSO Music Director Allen Tinkham
Allen Tinkham was appointed Music Director of Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) in 2001. During his tenure, CYSO has won four ASCAP National Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, and the Illinois Council of Orchestras’ Programming and Youth Orchestra of the Year awards. Prior to his appointment in Chicago, Tinkham served as Apprentice Conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. Recent engagements include the orchestras of Amarillo (TX), Dubuque (IA), Racine (WI), Elmhurst (IL), and Kansas City (MO), as well as All-State Festival Orchestras in Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New York. He is also a regular cover conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has been featured in the League of American Orchestras’ Conductor Preview and was invited to participate in the 14th International Nicolai Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Fourth International Conductors’ Competition Sir Georg Solti in Frankfurt, Germany. He has also been a seminar faculty member for the League of American Orchestras’ Orchestra Leadership Academy.
Tinkham received his B.M. with Distinction from the Eastman School of Music and his M.M. from the University of Michigan. At the University of Michigan he was appointed Music Director of both the Campus Symphony and Philharmonia orchestras, and received the Helen and Clyde Wu Conducting Fellowship, the youngest conductor to receive these distinctions. He has also studied at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, the Conductors Retreat at Medomak (ME), the International Institute for Conductors (Kiev, Ukraine) and Scuola Leonardo da Vinci (Florence, Italy).
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