This is the domain of social media. It’s worth noting that this digital realm has been constructed not by artists, but by high-salaried psychologists and algorithm developers, whose job it is to devise strategies that trigger dopamine responses—keeping us coming back for more.
We have succumbed to a whole host of subliminal psychological gimmicks that influence and entice us to live online—on platforms that prey on our brain chemistry. Something has been torn from us in this age of digital consolidation: it’s what our senses experience in the natural world and how we learn intrinsically through that connection. There is almost no escape from what we’ve built and what we are turning the world into. The disconnect from direct contact—where everything passes through a digital filter—comes at a price.
So it’s important to recognize the value of creating music together as an antidote to this social chaos—a chaos that seeks neither progress nor positive evolution for humanity, only the endless perpetuation of a kind of hellish circus. If, instead, the focus were on connecting people with the purpose of rising above divisions, it would mark an evolution of creative thinking rather than the continuation of social conflict.
This cycle of infinite pandemonium is designed to serve the purveyors of these platforms, stuffing their pockets with our presence. When we gather together around music, no digital filter is necessary.
The imperative to bring people together is nothing new. In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized the challenges facing the Civil Rights Movement. He contemplated an intense period of change during a year that marked a time when society was on the cusp of a major transformation. Similarly, as we now face the advancements of a separate, non-human consciousness set to overshadow our own, it is essential that we continue to find ways that bring us together—whether through digital communication or communing in person.
“This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos or community.”
Progress would be something leading us to greater understanding with one another. It’s possible to be fully aware of the kinds of stimulation that social media entices us with and still play along. The benefits of connecting may very well outweigh the underlying erosion of attention span, the dumbing down of the population, and, last but not least, the normalization of maliciousness as a character trait—as long as we are aware of the pitfalls.
It’s definitely a trade-off.
We think we are being good citizens by complying, but in reality, we are merely pawns on these platforms. We need to be conscious, as much as possible, and understand that this is not real progress. It’s entertainment—an endless magazine with indiscriminate content, unmonitored and unchecked—fuel for complacency.
Where indeed do we go from here?
We might stay in contact through the digital world, but the real world is where we congregate and have the opportunity to exert something positive going forward—where our power truly lies. This is where the concert experience comes in—the true meaning of concert: to work together in harmony.
A concert is truly an incredible spectacle: seeing a group of musicians performing together to create a vision of unity. When we organize ourselves around the expression of art, it looks and feels so natural—and it is.
Historically, we have organized ourselves to come together around spiritual, educational, political, and theatrical activities—all of which draw on our need to depend on one another. These can be seen as community-building activities that encourage collaboration while exploring the creation of a group dynamic.
It’s important to recognize that the more we engage in these experiences, the greater the opportunity for progress—rooted in empathy and connection. And in a world moving towards everything automated, classical music making will remain a bastion of human contact—a true oasis in a world of AI-manufactured content.
Music is a great unifier; it’s a people whisperer in the best sense. When we come together around art, it’s with a profound sense of empowerment—to create something as a group, where everyone’s contribution matters.
Music is a force that brings people together. It’s a way to connect not just with each other, but with something mysterious and transformative.
This is why being a musician reinforces the importance of the individual. A concert where everyone has a role shifts the focus from passive participation to active contribution, giving authentic meaning to everyone involved.
The concert experience may be a destination for musicians, but it’s the process of getting there that holds all the good stuff.
Enter the Youth Orchestra
Classical music has the youth orchestra built into its ecosystem. It plays a vital role—not just for the profession, but for society. It’s where we cultivate the value of music for the next generation.
It’s also where we learn that being a musician means being part of a community—one that is years in the making and increasingly missing in a world of distractions, societal fragmentation, and a general lack of constructive, meaningful live communication.
Music is the thing that brings us together and creates the experience of wholeness. It’s profound in its simplicity and a powerful force for good. In youth orchestras, this sense of unity and shared purpose is especially clear.
“Youth orchestras come in many shapes and forms: different age groups, more advanced, less advanced, etc. We call our younger groups youth orchestras as well. And I’d add that some groups, like our youth chamber orchestra, learn to play together without a conductor.”
The way a particular youth orchestra functions depends on everyone involved: administration, parents, the community, the music director, and—last but not least—the musicians.
It all takes place in the moment of being there. The conductor and the young musicians together create the mood, and it’s through this experience that a future orchestral player—or music enthusiast—is nurtured.
The Influence of the Legendary Claudio Abbado
It isn’t unusual to find a conductor who emerged out of one of the orchestras led by the late Claudio Abbado. Several musicians today who performed under him in one of his orchestras were in turn inspired to take up the baton.
He had such a remarkable musical presence and founded two youth orchestras himself: the European Community Youth Orchestra, later renamed the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO), and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (GMJO).
It’s no surprise, then, that the natural contagiousness of his presence would influence others to want to continue that deep feeling. After years of playing as a violinist in Abbado’s orchestras, Etienne Abelin was himself drawn to pursue conducting.
First of all, Etienne Abelin is a violinist, a musician. But to only call him a violinist leaves out his other roles, such as the founder of the classical music electro-acoustic festival Apples & Olives and his partnership in the music software-based product Music:Eyes, which turns the esoteric language of music into a visually understandable co-performance medium for live classical concerts. Adding conductor to that mélange is not a random thing but rather the thing that makes all of this work.
Back to the notion of a youth orchestra: it’s a space where communication, language, critical thinking, and individuality are all part of the process. It’s also where the ability to function in a group while still being a present participant is part of the training.
At its core, youth orchestras teach the importance of listening in several dimensions. One significant aspect of this is creating a world where people listen to one another to build a unified experience. This is the essence of what any great leader or ambassador personifies, and we get there through the unique interactions that take place in this character-building experience.
So much is happening in that group dynamic mixed with music. If you want to bring the world together, this is a great place to start. It’s different from sports—here we are all on the same team.
Most of all, a youth orchestra is community, the reward for all of those hours of prep work—the hours upon hours, days, weeks, months, years, summers—it’s a lot. Etienne Abelin really understands this. His role as conductor is as much about learning to listen to intricacies as it is about creating an atmosphere for camaraderie and opportunities for invention—invention being the thing that allows the individual to contribute and invest.
It’s not just a toe-hold into musical thinking; it’s a connection for the future of classical music and all the ways people end up supporting the art—as audience members, sponsors, presenters, or anyone working in the field. But don’t discount all the doctors, scientists, and mathematicians who started out playing instruments, and well, there’s even a Google Symphony made up of people who work there.
Let’s see what insights Etienne Abelin can offer to help us better understand what’s happening today in the youth orchestra experience.
Kathy Geisler Staring into your crystal ball, what predictions do you have about youth orchestras going into the future—maybe jump ahead 10 or 20 years?
Etienne Abelin The thing about youth orchestras, I believe, is that they are going to be around for a long time. They are not easily going to go out of fashion, as long as young people play instruments.
The reason is that learning instruments is a beautiful but quite solitary thing, and playing together with others is one of the most life-changing experiences for many young people. I was one of those kids, and many others have been as well.
It’s not just playing incredible symphonic music together; it’s also spending time together. It’s a social thing as well. I see that continuing into the foreseeable future and having value. I think it’s one of the reasons why we do this. And as for thinking that things like this are only for some elitist audience, that notion simply doesn’t exist for the youth orchestra player.
KG Do you think that youth orchestras in the future will serve as the more traditional counterpart to the orchestral experience we find in professional orchestras, or do you think they will branch out and become a space for innovation within the orchestra?
I’m curious how you see youth orchestras as a learning and teaching tool for preparation—will they become part of the vision for orchestras going forward, or will they remain a training ground for the traditional orchestral musician as we know them?
EA The question is: preparation for what? Preparation for music careers? Is it preparation for becoming an audience for the future of music? And I mean, we’re talking about classical music right now. Our youth orchestra organization—the EYSO (Empire State Youth Orchestra)—has 13 ensembles, including jazz and percussion ensembles among them.
If we talk about the classical side of things, are we talking about preparation for audiences? Are we talking about preparation for life in any field, for doing well in college? Is it preparation for becoming maybe donors of the future? I would say it’s all of these.
What we see are young people who are getting support in being prepared for life in so many different ways. It’s preparation for having a career outside of music, but with music still being a part of their lives, for all of their lives. Finding a local orchestra to play with in addition to having their own non-music jobs. If you were referring specifically to professional orchestras, what did you have in mind?
KG I think of it as a feeder to professional orchestras, the life cycle of a musician starting out in a youth orchestra and ending up in a professional orchestra.
EA So you mean actual professional musicians? Not feeder as in audience feeder.
KG Correct.
EA I would guess that the reality already is that a very high percentage of orchestra players who are in conservatories these days have had life-changing experiences in youth orchestras—some at school, and then some with independent youth orchestra organizations. So in that way, I think it definitely is happening and has been happening.
I recently had a nice conversation with the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, and he said, “Oh, you’re doing youth orchestra work. That’s so wonderful!” For him, it was one of the key things when he was young to play in a youth orchestra. It was a central thing, and the same is true for me and for many others.
So I think you could say that feeding is definitely happening. For many young musicians, being able to play in an orchestra, to play chamber music, chamber orchestra, jazz ensemble, pop ensemble, or choir—any variation of working together in music—is the thing that sparks their lifelong passion, and it becomes a feeder, but more so indirectly. It may start in a youth orchestra, but then go on to conservatory before the possibility of working in a professional orchestra.
KG How innovative is the work you do with the orchestra in this preparatory process?
EA A large percentage of musicians in our orchestra, and in many youth orchestras, are not going into professional music and are not becoming professionally trained musicians. They may have it as a minor in college. I think it has different parts. There’s definitely an educational component to the work. You don’t rehearse with a youth orchestra entirely like you would with a professional orchestra because you train ensemble playing, and you train getting out of the way, helping the young musicians understand how they can play chamber music in a large hall.
The other day, we had this moment where the first violins had something to work on with the third trombone, so they had to learn how to play together. Of course you don’t explicitly do that type of work with professional orchestras. That’s an example of something you work on with the youth orchestra.
As for innovation, yes, we are always doing new things, such as mixing genres. We do projects where I think of it as being in the present, and not so much as preparation for the traditional. It’s the experience of wow: we get to know different types of music and we get to know that an orchestra can play with turntables. We can fiddle around with a Beethoven symphony or a Brahms symphony and recompose. We can break open a piece and add an instant, improvised/improvisation part into it, and everybody learns from that—no matter whether they go into music afterward or not.
KG That’s interesting. That answers the next question a bit, which is: do the players expect a more traditional approach, or are they pushing for something more? I mean, maybe they don’t really even know what a traditional approach is?
EA There are many who are: “Whoa, let’s do something fun.” “Hey, let’s discover this Beethoven symphony,” or “Let’s discover this Tchaikovsky symphony.” “Wow, what amazing music, I had no idea.” And then others know some of these pieces, and after having had a chance to play them, they are into learning them more intensively.
It’s all over the map, and some push for new things. “Oh, that particular new thing that we did was really fun and I learned so much.” And others, “Yeah, it was okay, but I really prefer to play whatever piece from the canon that we did.”
When we do surveys, it’s really all over the place. It’s very hard to see a tendency, but when it comes to innovation and doing new things, you have to do them really well, and you have to do them very convincingly.
But the same is true with professional orchestras, usually. So again, I don’t see so much difference in those worlds, in terms of the mentality and in terms of what people are looking for.
KG What has working extensively with youth orchestras taught you about the craft of conducting in general?
EA Conducting can be so many different things. And what’s interesting about any work, particularly in youth orchestras, is how much ensemble playing skills you can coach. I like to do a lot of that. I really would like the orchestra I conduct to be able to play together and breathe together without a conductor.
Then, of course, in the work, conducting takes on another role. You start getting really minimal as an educational method and approach, because you want people to learn what it takes to self-regulate. So in terms of just the pure craft of conducting, that’s something that is not exclusive to youth orchestras. It’s part of the work that is particularly interesting.
That’s the first thing that comes to mind. It’s really such a central part of working with a young group for me. It’s a very strong priority.
KG I’d like to ask how working with a youth orchestra has changed how you think about classical music in general. I’m getting a real sense that learning to listen is key, and imparting that is key. But when you think about classical music, does it become a listening exercise in a deep way? When you’re listening to a youth orchestra, you’re listening in a particular way for that sense that people are playing well together. And of course, you want all of that when you’re working with a professional orchestra.
How do you manage to step away from all the work and then come back to yourself in terms of how you experience classical music? How do you maintain your ability to say, “I can still be myself,” without thinking about it as two different things—conducting with the same intentions either way?
EA The first thing I would say is that the artistic goals are the same.
You want gripping, passionate playing, you want breathing together, you want subtlety, obviously, you want storytelling on stage, and those are some of the dimensions that I’m thinking of when I work specifically with a youth orchestra. But I would work on similar things in my own chamber music group and, to some extent, with professional orchestras.
Ultimately, you want gripping performances, and you want a real dramaturgy that works. And that is not different. So when I listen to a youth orchestra, or when I listen to a professional group, I listen for similar things. In terms of artistry, of course, there’s a difference in how those things are executed and to what extent those things are executed, and, of course, to what extent the details, the balance, and the sound are done. But there you have a little bit of back and forth.
We work on getting things in tune, obviously, but we’re not going to obsess about it in a youth orchestra because there are going to be flaws, and it doesn’t really matter because that’s not an indication of whether a performance is successful and captivating or not.
KG I feel your optimism about classical music. Do you want to talk about that at all, like what your sense is of where things are going?
I mean, there’s so much negativity, and because there is so much to get depressed about with respect to classical music—the diminishing picture of things—I personally want to be optimistic, and I guess I want to ask you if you are optimistic.
EA Yeah, absolutely. The art form, the music, the pieces, the music that we are talking about—composed music—there are so many styles blending into what we call Western Classical Music. This art form has been around for so long and it has survived.
And it has survived because there were human beings who, at some point through the centuries, captured something essential about the human condition. I have absolutely no worry that it is going to get lost. It’s like Easter eggs. They are there to be found and rediscovered, and if for some reason they disappear for 50 years or something, or a culture doesn’t cultivate it, it doesn’t do anything to the Easter egg. It’s still there. It’s not getting old.
These pieces are always alive, and then we bring them back to life in the moment, finding new perspectives, but they’re there. And as for what they do right now, I do think there’s a thirst for purpose, for depth, for how to deal with the world. That is very, very challenging, and maybe increasingly so, and people find that dealing with some of this old art—whether it is music or something else—can be healing, can be a teacher, can be a refuge.
Things are pretty traumatizing in the world at times, and to have a bit of a refuge to go back to, to restore energies, to restore powers, or to just deal with difficult things, deal with trauma, is wonderful.
I don’t see that disappearing at all because these things are there, and also new composers are writing fantastic new music, looking at the world in different ways, and dealing with contemporary topics. That’s just ongoing.
So there’s a constant flow of innovation, but there are also these old products, if you want, that are not going to disappear.
KG This is a bit of a different subject. What are some things that you might like to see created as far as establishing an infrastructure for youth orchestras, either in the US or anywhere else? Maybe something you’ve discovered that you think would be great to institute, as far as either running an orchestra, creating an orchestra, or just how it functions.
I tend to think of youth orchestras as a kind of franchise, you know. You put it together with players of stringed instruments, then you’ve got an orchestra, and then you just rehearse them. You give some concerts in the community, and you did a good job—pat yourself on the back. That’s really simplistic. But it looks like that to someone who knows absolutely nothing about what it is and what it is doing for the individuals and the future of that community. Somehow, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to show the value of what is being created here.
EA It’s not a business model, but it’s an achieving-a-purpose model. It’s a very successful one, and I think you’re right in calling it a bit of a franchise, maybe because when it works, it works beautifully.
I want to mention a big topic: How can you, in playing music together, especially in large groups, empower young people?
What’s definitely changing is that you are not going to go up there and be inspirational, telling people how to play and be a great storyteller. You can still do that a little bit, but it’s really about how can I shape that experience? How is youth ownership happening? And that’s a question many people are asking in many organizations.
So yes, it’s a franchise that’s working, but it’s also a franchise that’s developing. It’s a model rather than a franchise. It’s a model that’s developing and that has to ask certain questions, and one of them is youth ownership.
What does youth ownership in the context of a big symphony orchestra really mean?
What do you do with that situation where you have a conductor, who, for practical reasons, leads rehearsals?
How can you break that open?
And I’m very interested in what that could mean—stepping away and having the young people run it. How they run a chamber music group, and how just a few can shape their rehearsal process. And they’re all involved. Of course, sometimes you have people who take more of a leadership role, or less. But in a group of eight or a hundred people, you obviously need to find ways of empowering musicians. You still need, however, a rehearsal structure that someone organizes—but maybe there are different ways.
I know that there are professional-level conductor-less orchestras—larger orchestras as well—but with chamber orchestras, I’m thinking of Orpheus, obviously, or Spira mirabilis in Europe. They find ways of rehearsing that really bring ownership to everybody. And I think that’s a really interesting challenge for orchestras. Specifically, you focus on trust. You want ownership from the young people, you want to teach them, you want them to absorb new things—but you also want them to shape the experience.
KG Can you give some examples of that?
EA Some of it I started experimenting with. Playing together and getting the conductor out of the way is a really obvious one. Now you’re responsible for the pulse—everybody is responsible for the pulse. If you’re sitting at the fourth desk of the viola section and you still have two desks behind you, you’re a leader, because you lead the ones behind you. So you have to breathe with everybody else. If you don’t, then this big animal—an orchestra—suddenly has some kind of block in its spine.
Everybody needs to breathe, and that’s really empowering. So we make sure everyone is involved. For example, everyone turns their heads and looks at the person on the third desk of the second violins, because that person is now leading the next cue. These little exercises really help the ensemble play together more effectively and foster a sense of ownership for everyone.
Other things have to do with interpretation. I have some ideas about how to approach that, which I haven’t tried out yet. For example: how can you get the young people to develop their own musical ideas and their own sense of dramaturgy, and then bring that into the process of how they play the piece?
I’m thinking of interpretation as: where are we? Where are we in the storyline of the Tchaikovsky symphony we’re playing right now? We experimented with this in the Sistema Europe Youth Orchestra. We had an interpretation group—about seven or eight players—who went through the piece and came up with a dramaturgy that made sense to them.
“It’s very foggy here at the beginning. It’s very dark, and it sounds brittle. And then it goes into this smooth, lighter passage, which is a kind of relief.” They basically created the dramaturgy that we then implemented in the way we played. It’s really something when you have young people as part of the interpretation team.
As for chamber music, that’s obvious. I was just coaching a chamber group here at ESYO—you really teach them how to develop an interpretation on their own. But what you do in a large group with a lot of people, that’s really a challenge, and I want to explore more ideas in that direction.
KG That really eclipses my next question, which is: Do you see a model as something that can be duplicated in a similar way to how El Sistema functions, or do you think there needs to be a more fluid construct to fit the diversity of cultural and other circumstances?
In other words, it’s not a one-size-fits-all situation—every youth orchestra is as different as the community it finds itself in, right?
EA Definitely, definitely. And how you bring in the community and how you can serve the community is going to be different in many different places. At the same time, I’m also a universalist, and I do think one can work on principles and approaches that then can be adapted to the situation in the community. For example, for an ensemble to learn to breathe together can take different forms depending on where we’re at. But that’s something that makes sense to replicate.
KG Do you feel you could go anywhere and start a youth orchestra?
EA I think I could bring a few things, but there would be a lot of learning—like understanding what’s going on in that place. Also, what music is local? Does it make sense to bring our repertoire? Maybe not. But does it make sense to breathe together? Definitely.
Does it make sense to talk about certain types of dramaturgy, or certain types of principles that we all want to do together? Definitely. And when you’re talking on that level, then there’s also the whole component of who you learn from, and what groups of people can be the teachers in that particular thing.
I’m very interested in our young people getting more aware of their bodies—what we call, more and more, embodied musicianship—because there’s no playing together as an ensemble without having the body available. And that means the whole body. There’s no way you can be expressive without having the body available. There’s no way you can bring energy across to an audience and have a co-creative space with an audience without having the body available.
In fact, there’s no way to really learn technique well without having the body available—breathing and sensing pulse.
It’s something that is cultivated in some places in a much stronger way than around here. I would say you could go anywhere, but then you can bring certain principles and apply them; however, you need to see what is there and what really works.
At what point do you go in? How forceful should you be? And how slow do you plan the process? You can go in with lots of ideas, but you could totally overwhelm everybody if it’s not done at the right time and with the right pacing. And, of course, being humble, listening, and learning is essential. I certainly learn at least as much from our young musicians as I do from the other way around. The same is true in any situation you’re in and in any place you go.
KG One thing I see as a difference between how youth orchestras and professional orchestras function is that with professional orchestras, you get a lot of guest conductors, but I don’t think you do that with youth orchestras. Is it more because “These are my kids, and I don’t let just anybody conduct my kids?”
Do you get invited to conduct another youth orchestra and sort of switch with somebody and say, “Hey, I think it would be really cool for my kids to work with you,” and vice versa?
EA The difficulty with guest conducting is that for many of these orchestras, the concert cycle is two and a half to three months of work, with one weekly rehearsal of two and a half or three hours. So, yes, you could have someone for a session to provide a different perspective. That would make a lot of sense.
In general, one thing that would be good for youth orchestras to have is a dedicated space. With the Empire State Youth Orchestra, we just bought a building—an old school—and we’re renovating it now, turning it into a music center. It’s becoming the ESYO Music Center, and that is something that is going to change a lot of things for us.
It’s something I know from other youth orchestras around the country that have their own location and building. It’s life-changing because then you can create synergies. People can come in, young people can come in, and it becomes their kind of home—a third home of sorts.
We plan on having listening rooms, lounges where you can just hang out, places where you can do homework, and then rehearsals. You can have a rehearsal and then continue with the chamber music rehearsal. People who drive in from far away could come for an entire afternoon, with lots of things happening at the same time. That’s not possible for us right now, and I know it’s an issue for many youth orchestras around the country.
The three homes—home, school, and the third place—where you go in between activities—all that is going to change!
KG When is the facility projected to open?
EA We are hoping to move in and begin rehearsals there by sometime in 2026, if not sooner! M
Leave a Comment (Comments are Moderated)
You must be logged in to post a comment.