Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra

The Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, commonly known as the ASYO, is an organization featuring Atlanta's young instrumentalists, created in 1974. Each May, about 300 middle to high school instrumentalists go through one or more auditions for places in the ASYO (the minimum age requirement is 13, though exceptions are made). Only about 100 will be selected to participate in the season. The youth orchestra In 1974, the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra was created as a subsidiary of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, a practice that is relatively rare for American orchestras. However, this arrangement worked for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since it began as a youth ensemble itself, the Atlanta Youth Symphony of 1944-47. Thirty years after the start of the Atlanta Youth Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra was formed, first directed under Michael Palmer, Associate Conductor of the ASO. Sung Kwak was the successor to Michael Palmer as conductor of the orchestra and conducted for two years. From 1979 to 2014, Jere Flint was the conductor of the orchestra. From 2014 to 2017, Joseph Young was the conductor. Stephen Mulligan was the conductor from 2017-2020, and Jerry Hou has been the conductor since 2020. Buddy Langeley will take over the position of music director beginning with the 2023-2024 season.