San Francisco Youth Chamber Orchestra

San Francisco Youth Chamber Orchestra is a group of passionate young musicians from the Bay Area and farther reaching areas of Sacramento and Modesto. Most members are also part of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra or San Francisco Conservatory where they played together and met. The chamber orchestra is organized and conducted by 18 year old conductor-in-training Euan Shields. The 22 member group of teens and early twenties rehearse in Shields' home or in a back room at Davies hall after SFSYO rehearsals. They have a played five public concerts in San Francisco in churches around the city. All performances are charity concerts to raise money to help homeless families in San Francisco. The orchestra plays a diverse repertoire, most recently performing pieces by Bach, Elgar, Debussy, Schoenberg, Dvorak, Ravel and Monteverdi. Every performance brings a new adventure, incorporating such unexpected elements as harp solos, choral singers and large wind sections. San Francisco Youth Chamber Orchestra has now begun to play regularly at The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin.