Youth Classics
From location scouting to the Like button – we master a broad repetoire of activities that will make your concert a success. As the creator of the successful brand Young Euro Classic, the festival celebrating the world’s best youth orchestras, we pool valuable resources for professional young orchestras. Over the years, we have enabled one-of-a-kind performances around Germany as well as in Switzerland and Austria.
Discover more about our bi- and tri-national orchestra start-ups, for example in the context of the Year of Germany series and other international events:
Festival Series 2000-2022
Young Euro Classic
From a dream among friends to a successful Berlin brand
Young Euro Classic is the world’s most important platform for international youth orchestras. The festival’s mission is to inject new life into Europe’s classical music tradition and its future. Every summer, ambitious orchestras from all over the world transform the Konzerthaus on Gendarmenmarkt into a hotspot of youth culture. “The Bayreuth of the young generation” (Berliner Morgenpost) proves, year on year, to be a landmark event in the German cultural landscape. The orchestra embodies a community spirit and celebrates social models of participation and togetherness, with the underlining values of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Young Euro Classic remained a vital source of positivity in Berlin’s summer calendar, despite the pandemic restrictions and global lockdowns from 2020 onwards. The festival of the best youth orchestras in the world successfully tested the framework of coronavirus-proof concert events. After a cultural dry spell for months caused by the first lockdown in 2020, audience and artists met again in person. A sophisticated hygiene concept enabled excellent musicians from the Berlin University of the Arts, the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music, the Barenboim-Said Academy and the Berlin Jazz Institute to share their joy of music with an enthusiastic audience for a 10-day run.
In 2021, the pandemic was still raging, but the team was well prepared for the ever-changing regulations. The return to the original festival format, including the reestablishment of the Young Euro Classic Orchestra Germany-France, was a resounding success. Additionally, the next generation of young musicians could safely meet at the German-French Junior Academy, where music students from Neukölln worked with members of the El Camino project of the Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn in France. Substitute ensembles replaced orchestras which could not travel to Berlin due to the pandemic.
In 2022, Young Euro Classic returned to its tried and true format of presenting large-scale youth orchestras in full strength, playing great symphonic repertoire and new works from their homelands. Find the most recent festival news here.
Services: Event conceptualization, marketing, PR, ticketing, artist/orchestra management, ticketing
Performance series 2018-2021
Le Concert Olympique
Under the direction of Jan Caeyers, the LCO inspired royal guests
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Le Concert Olympique performed Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” under the baton of Jan Caeyers at the Philharmonie Berlin in 2018 under the patronage and in the presence of King Philippe of Belgium and Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Thunderous applause closed a deeply moving concert. The orchestra and conductor returned to Berlin in February 2019 with the internationally successful pianist Alexander Melnikov and the programme The Beethoven Experience, as well as in December 2019 with the renowned pianist Kristian Bezuuidenhout featuring Rethinking Beethoven to kick off the Beethoven Year.
Services: Marketing, PR, ticketing
Performance series 2017-2022
Curtis Institute of Music
Whether as a symphony orchestra or an artist-in-residence ensemble, the Curtis Institute of Music always delivers!
Each year, the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia admits approximately 150 students to its academy, following one of the world’s most rigorous selection processes, to prepare them for futures with the world’s top orchestras. Since the inception of Curtis on Tour, initiated by Nina von Maltzahn in 2008, the Curtis Institute of Music’s (CIoM) students have gone on to perform over 200 concerts worldwide! In spring 2017, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra visited Berlin for the first time with a varied as well as challenging program under the baton of Osmo Vänskä, principal conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2018, the Zorá String Quartet, CIoM’s Artist in Residence, conquered the capital with its debut at the Konzerthaus Berlin. In 2019, as part of an alumni program, the Curtis on Tour Ensemble performed at the Berlin Konzerthaus with Elissa Lee Koljonen, Mikael Eliasen, and a program ranging from Beethoven, Débussy, and Ravel to Fauré, Chopin, Schubert, Handel, and Ned Rorem. In 2021, Josef Špaček, Timotheos Petrin and George Xiaoyuan Fu thrill audiences with works by Beethoven and Dvořák at the Konzerthaus. By the following year, twice as many Curtis alumni are winning over Berlin audiences after the pandemic peak: Elena Perroni, Andrea Obiso, Haesu Lee, Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin and Pallavi Mahidhara bring works by Schubert, Danielpour and Brahms to life.
Services: Artist management, marketing, design PR
Performance series 2014-2021
Baltic Sea Philharmonic
Under the baton of Kristjan Järvi, the Baltic Sea Philharmonic delighted with “Midnight Sun”
With their sold-out debut at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2014, Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic – then known as the Baltic Youth Philharmonic – composed of young musicians from the entire Baltic Sea region thrilled audiences and the press. In June 2019, the ensemble continued its engagement in Berlin with Midnight Sun, celebrating the magical power of the Nordic skies with compositions by Pärt, Rautavaara, Vasks, Richter and Stravinsky. Don’t look for music stands on the stage – this orchestra plays from memory!
Services: Marketing, ticketing
Performance series 2012-2021
Philharmonie der Animato Stiftung
The best of European music schools on tour
The Schweizer Animato Stiftung was established in 2005 with the aim of promoting young talented soloists and orchestral musicians from all over Europe. The Foundation organized a competition in 2012 for the fourth time for musicians from European music academies, whose winners performed as the 80-member ensemble “Philharmonia of the Animato Foundation” in Bratislava, Graz, Bern, Berlin, Prague and Vienna. Accompanied by the French violinist Fanny Clamagirand, they performed works by Lyadov, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. As part of the sixth tour in 2016, the “Philharmonia” returned to Berlin: under the baton of the French conductor Pierre Bleuse, works by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Borodin were performed, and the ensemble accompanied the young, internationally sought-after violinist Alexandra Soumm.
We had the pleasure of hosting the orchestra for its third appearance in Berlin in October 2021.
Services: Marketing, design, PR
Concert 2019
LGT Young Soloists
High-caliber virtuosos in a one-of-a-kind youth ensemble
Violinist Alexander Gilman, artistic director of the LGT Young Soloists alongside pianist Marina Seltenreich, founded the youth orchestra in 2013 to unite top-class young virtuosos from 15 nations in one ensemble. The project mission is unique: young exceptional talents perform alongside their peers as soloists and accompany each other in their own ensemble. They came to Berlin for the first time in 2019, performing works by Schumann, Sibelius, Bottesini, Hindemith, Beethoven and Giovanni Sollima at the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie. The 2019/2020 season included many highlights, such as performing at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin Philharmonie, and in Bangkok and Jakarta, as well as featuring at the Rheingau Music Festival, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Vienna Musikverein, Neues Schloss Stuttgart and Victoria Hall in Singapore. In 2021 the LGT Young Soloists also made their Young Euro Classic debut.
Services: Marketing
Performance series 2008-2019
San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra
Impressive musical encounters
When on tour, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra makes a point of stopping over in Berlin. Founded in 1981, it has been cultivating a reputation as one of the best youth orchestras in the world. MINZ has been facilitating its performances at the Berliner Philharmonic since its debut in Berlin in 2008, when chief conductor Benjamin Shwartz and violinist Julian Rachlin impressed a sold-out crowd with their musical prowess.
These successes have been repeated year on year. Donato Cabrera, music director of the ensemble from 2009-2016, offered interesting programmes contrasting contemporary American compositions with classical symphonies. Works by John Adams met Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concert in A-minor, while symphonies by Gustav Mahler and Max Bruch took prominence in 2012 and 2015. The 11th tour of the orchestra in 2019 featured Detlev Glanert’s Prelude No. 1 from Three American Preludes, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, and, for a second time, Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
Services: Marketing, design, PR
Concert 2017
Anniversary concert honoring Nelson Mandela
The MIAGI Youth Orchestra under Duncan Ward symbolizes Nelson Mandela’s vision
On the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday, the enduring legacy of the freedom fighter was honored with a celebratory concert. Mandela dreamed of a society in which every person, regardless of origin, race or skin color, had a place. The South African youth orchestra MIAGI, whose members come from all social classes in South Africa, embodies this vision musically, as does Just 6, an a cappella sextet featuring musicians from South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and England, who arrange traditional African songs in a completely new way. The young British conductor Duncan Ward, in turn, composed “Rainbow Beats,” a work tailored to the orchestra, for the anniversary. In the presence of distinguished guests such as Heiko Maas, then Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, and H.E. Phumelele Stone Sizani, then Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa in Germany, they embraced musical joie de vivre with a sold-out house.
Services: Artist/ orchestra management, marketing, PR
On tour 2017
Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco
First European concert series builds bridges between countries
In the course of the German-Mexican Year 2017, MINZ presented the first tour of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco in German-speaking countries. Founded in 1915 by the renowned composer/conductor José Rolón, the orchestra gave performances in Essen, Berlin, Munich and Vienna. The European premiere was a resounding success: under the direction of principal conductor Marco Parisotto, the orchestra built dynamic bridges between countries with works by modern Mexican masters such as Silvestre Revueltas, Arturo Márquez and Javier Alvarez, along with Brahms’ First Symphony. Unconventional branding built a dedicated audience, while comprehensive marketing and press work resulted in unanimously positive reviews and standing ovations after every concert.
Services: Tour and project management, marketing, design, PR
On tour 2017
Zohra – The Afghani Women’s Orchestra
Pioneers of a turbulent country impress at the World Economic Forum
Against the backdrop of the Taliban coming to power in 2021, this project four years earlier seems like something from another world: 30 young women from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music who were the first female Afghanis to study music in 30 years founded the Zohra orchestra on their own initiative, where music was meant to serve as a response to war and destruction and to be a step on the path to building a peaceful civil society in a torn nation. With the country’s first female conductors – Zarifa Adiba and Negin Khpolwak – they brought a centuries-old musical tradition to the stage. The concert series began at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zurich, and Geneva, together with members of the Orchestre du Collège de Genève. In Weimar and Berlin, Zohra musicians made beautiful music in collaboration with the Musikgymnasium Schloss Belvedere Weimar. The orchestra played a sampling of traditional Afghan music complemented with an arrangement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
Services: Project management, marketing, PR
Concert 2015
Boston Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
The music stars of tomorrow with a world-class sound
Young Euro Classic 2015 opened with an American midsummer night’s dream – 115 of Boston’s musicians had their German debut under the direction of Maestro Benjamin Zander, featuring works by Dvořák, Bartók and Shostakovich. Barely 3 years old, the orchestra gave a masterful performance that was so brilliant, you would have thought you were watching a world-class symphony. Cellist Natalia Gutman sparkled with her solo performance that crowned the evening at the Berliner Philharmonie. The orchestra continued its tour after the Berlin debut, enchanting audiences around Germany, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland.
Services: Project management, marketing, PR