Applications now open for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and St Mary's Music School's new SCO Youth Academy

Having successfully created the SCO String Academy and SCO Wind Academy, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is once again partnering with St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh for the SCO Youth Academy, a new, high quality orchestra for young musicians which will offer school-aged young musicians the opportunity to work with top professionals over a series of Sunday afternoon sessions in the centre of Edinburgh. Designed to complement existing provision, it aims to enhance musical learning in a welcoming environment.

The orchestra will be conducted by SCO violinist Gordon Bragg and tutored by SCO musicians. It will be open to spiring secondary school-aged orchestral musicians who have reached Grade 6+ for strings and timpani and percussion, Grade 7+ for winds and brass and who are able to commit to a series of five sessions. Repertoire for this course is Sibelius' Finlandia and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade movements 1 and 3 and places will be allocated following submission of a successful video audition. The first session is scheduled to take place on 1 November 2020, with SCO String and Wind Academies planned for February to March 2021.

St Mary's Music School was started in 1880 as the Song School of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, to educate the choristers of the newly built St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh. The school started to expand in the early 1970s to create a Scottish school modelled on the Yehudi Menuhin School in England.

Applications are now open, see the SCO website for details; applications will be emailed full instructions about how to send their audition video.