News
January 14, 2016Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust Awards Grant to Empire State Youth Orchestras
Empire State Youth Orchestras (ESYO) is proud to announce that it has recently received a $6,000 grant from the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust for the purpose of providing scholarships for ESYO musicians to help defray the cost of tuition. This is the third time that ESYO has received a grant from the Trust.
To ensure that music is accessible to as many eligible young musicians as possible, ESYO purposely keeps its tuition at a level below what it actually costs to run the program. Despite this low fee, many musicians still face economic barriers to joining, so ESYO also provides need-based financial assistance which is funded by the generosity of the community and by generous grants such as this from the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust. The receipt of the 2015 Solomon grant allows ESYO to continue the Alfred Z. Solomon Scholarship Fund, first established through a 2012 grant from the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust. To date, that fund has awarded 57 scholarships over three seasons, helping many ESYO musicians participate in ESYO’s program of music education and performance opportunities. The 2015 grant will be used for scholarships to be awarded to musicians in the 2016-17 season.
About Empire State Youth Orchestras: 350+ talented youth from the Capital Region of New York and western New England are selected by audition each year for positions in ESYO’s program of high-level music education and performance opportunities for young musicians. Well known for its Youth Orchestra’s participation in CBS 6’s Melodies of Christmas (benefit concerts for the pediatric cancer program at Albany Medical Center), ESYO actually has a total of nine performing ensembles that collectively give approximately 30 public performances a year. ESYO reaches out to the community with an annual free concert for senior citizens, concerts for young people, and ESYO’s Sistema CHIME™, a free music education program for inner-city, low-income youth in Albany and Schenectady. Founded in 1979, ESYO has been recognized as a premier music education/performance program for youth and has received three prestigious ASCAP awards. A not-for-profit organization governed by a volunteer board of directors, ESYO was named Tech Valley Nonprofit Business Council’s Nonprofit Organization of 2013 (for organizations of fewer than 75 employees) in recognition of ESYO’s positive contributions to the vitality of the region. For more information, please visit the Orchestra website.
