Youth symphony receives $35,000 in grants from the O.L. Halsell, Getty foundations

The Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra
(OCYSO), based at Chapman University, has received a $30,000 grant from the
O.L. Halsell Foundation
to provide scholarship support for the orchestra’s 2013 tour of the United Kingdom, which will take place this August. In addition, OCYSO has just received $5,000 from the
Getty Foundation
to support the orchestra’s general operations and programming.

“We are deeply grateful to both the O.L. Halsell Foundation and the Getty Foundation for recognizing the significance of our work and of OCYSO’s five-decade commitment to providing the highest level of pre-professional musical training in Orange County,” says Daniel Alfred Wachs, music director and conductor of OCYSO, who is also Chapman’s director of orchestras and director of instrumental studies. “With their generous grants, both foundations have enabled deserving students to participate in our exciting Tour of the UK, providing them with a musical and cultural opportunity of a lifetime.”

The youth orchestra — an important recruiting program for Chapman University that includes Chapman students and many high school students planning to attend Chapman among its members — will perform concerts in London, Oxford and other English cities this August. The tour will be capped by orchestra members attending a Proms concert by the
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
in London’s Royal Albert Hall to hear the world premiere of a new composition by Mark Anthony Turnage.  The OCYSO will perform the same work (as yet untitled) at the
Renée & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall
in May 2014 as a West Coast premiere.

The Halsell Foundation, based in Costa Mesa, has distributed more than $1 million dollars to charitable organizations throughout Orange County in 2012-13.

The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the greater understanding and preservation of the arts in Los Angeles and throughout the world.

The Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra, now in its 43rd season, is the official youth orchestra of Orange County and has been based at Chapman University since its founding. Winner of The 2012 American Prize in Orchestral Performance—Youth Orchestra Division, the non-profit OCYSO provides the highest level of pre-professional orchestral training for young musicians in Southern California. OCYSO’s mission, to introduce great music into the lives of young people, is fulfilled in part through its highly acclaimed Concerts for Fifth Graders, in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. This series, presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, has provided music education for more than 500,000 students. Additionally, OCYSO presents a concert series in Memorial Hall at Chapman.  Kicking off the current 2012-2013 season, OCYSO presented a capstone performance at Los Angeles’
Disney Hall
, home of the LA Philharmonic, as part of the inaugural West Coast Youth Orchestra Festival.