GENERAL INFORMATION

The Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra (TPYO) offers a professional-level training symphonic training program for serious and career-oriented pre-college musicians. Founded in 1953, the Tucson Philharmonia provides the opportunity for the finest high school-age players from throughout the Tucson metropolitan area and other Southern Arizona communities to learn professional performance skills and to perform exciting symphonic literature in a wide range of styles from standard classical masterworks to repertoire from Broadway, opera, film, jazz, and ballet.

The Philharmonia's challenging program places you among a select group of highly motivated musicians and offers an exceptional level of musical training which includes full orchestra and sectional rehearsals, personalized coaching sessions, and concert performances.

The Tucson Philharmonia's members are among the most honored young musicians in Southern Arizona. Eighty-one of the 2008-2009 Philharmonia's members participated in the 2009 Regional Honor Orchestra and Bands and twenty-eight members won 2009 Arizona All-State honors. Tucson Philharmonia members also won awards at numerous music competitions, appearing as soloists with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Tucson Pops Orchestra, and Civic Orchestra of Tucson, and other Southern Arizona ensembles. In addition, many members were the recipients of scholarships to top universities and summer music programs.

The Tucson Philharmonia is nationally recognized among the country's foremost symphonic training programs, and it has been awarded the Arizona Music Educators Association's Raymond G. Van Diest Arts Advocacy Award for its outstanding artistry and outreach efforts across the state of Arizona. In addition, the Tucson Philharmonia made history in 2000, becoming the first and only Arizona orchestra to produce and present a concert at New York's famed Carnegie Hall.

The 2009-2010 Tucson Philharmonia's schedule will include concert performances, an intensive training retreat, a tour to Las Vegas for activities with the Las Vegas Academy Philharmonic and the music faculty of UNLV, and the Philharmonia Scholarship Competition culminating in the Philharmonia Artists Spotlight Concert. 

The Tucson Philharmonia's Symphonic Training Program has a schedule of activities throughout the 2009-2010 school year that has been carefully designed to coordinate with AMEA/ABODA sanctioned school music events and band days, as well as with SAT and ACT testing days. Students who are already heavily involved with other musical groups, sports teams, jobs, or extracurricular activities on Saturdays and who are unable to commit to the Philharmonia's 2009-2010 schedule (shown in the Program Information) should not apply for membership. Because of the structured schedule, attendance is necessary to benefit fully from the Philharmonia's unique educational program.

Philharmonia Mission Statement

Brief History

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