NOTES 2024: Youth Symphony

Hi! My name is Melody Alonso, and I am a trumpet player in the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestras (EYSO). For the past three years, I have had the fortune of being a part of high-level ensembles including Youth Symphony Orchestra, Brass Choir, and the Sterling Brass Quintet. Through these ensembles, I have been introduced to many high level musicians (including some from the Elgin Symphony and Chicago Symphony), and I have been able to perform at many venues, such as Symphony Center in Chicago.

EYSO provides its students with music education at its highest level. Students have the opportunity to explore difficult orchestral repertoire at a professional level, while being driven to explore the very ideas that went into the creation of our favorite compositions. I have been fortunate enough to study pieces that I had previously only admired, such as Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony, Jean Sibelius’s 1st Symphony, and Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome.

EYSO is an organization that I am infinitely grateful for. However, with the expenses that go into each students education, EYSO needs your help to raise the funds that allow this high-level education to be available to even more students.

Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestras is collecting donations as part of our annual fundraising campaign: NOTES 2024. This campaign runs from March 24 to May 5, 2024.

Tuition covers only one-third of the total cost of each member’s participation in EYSO. The other 2/3 is covered by donations such as yours. Our NOTES campaign helps keep tuition reasonable and offsets program costs.

Now in our 48^th season, EYSO serves nearly 400 students in 4th grade through college from 70 different communities via five orchestras, as well as percussion ensembles, Brass Choir and Flute Choir, and a thriving Chamber Music Institute. The mission of EYSO is to create a community of young musicians, enriching their lives and the lives of their families, schools, communities, and beyond, through the study and performance of excellent music. By supporting the NOTES campaign, you are impacting the lives of so many!

Donations of any size can make a real impact! Thank you so much for supporting the students of EYSO.