about us

The Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra offers young musicians an inclusive, supportive, and pedagogically engaging music-making experience.

The Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra has been providing the finest orchestral training to the youth of northern Ohio since 1969. NOYO offers young musicians in grades three through twelve from Toledo to Cleveland an inclusive, supportive, and pedagogically engaging music-making experience. Its core ensembles perform three concerts each season.

Based in Oberlin, Ohio, NOYO enjoys access to rehearsal and performance spaces and instrumental coaches from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, one of the nation's most prestigious conservatories. NOYO’s artistic staff are among the finest music educators in the region, with national profiles in conducting, composition, and music education research.

In addition to the regular activities that make up NOYO’s concert season and Summer Music day camps, NOYO conducts an annual concerto competition and a postseason chamber music extension, as well as tours, trips, and other enrichments. Each season, NOYO’s Arlene and Larry Dunn Composer-In-Residence Program commissions a new work for orchestra from an Oberlin Conservatory composer. NOYO ensembles have also participated in collaborations with the NEOS Center for Dance, the MAD* Factory, and the Oberlin Choristers.

What truly distinguishes NOYO from its peer organizations, however, is its insistence on removing all possible barriers to participation. NOYO makes good on this promise through close partnerships with music programs in area schools, broad allocation of financial aid, and innovative programming that accommodates musicians of all backgrounds and levels of preparation. NOYO does work that no other youth orchestra in northern Ohio does.