There are four categories available to entrants, each category having its own prize for the winning entrant. Entrants to all categories will be asked to perform two contrasting pieces (maximum 6 minutes overall) and music grades will be formed into the following categories:

• Category A (Grades 1, 2 & 3 or equivalent)
• Category B (Grades 4, 5 & 6 or equivalent)
• Category C (Grade 7 or equivalent and above)
• Category D (Small classical music groups – Chamber ensembles with no more than 8 players)

Further information can be found by visiting the Avison Ensemble Young Musicians’ website page here

Remissions

• The fees will be reduced to £130 for the whole year, if the sum is paid in one installment.

• Siblings are entitled to a half price reduction.

• Students eligible for free school meals receive a full remission of fees (ie free membership)

John Wilson is a former Gateshead Youth Orchestra student who has established an enviable reputation as a conductor, arranger and scholar, recognised internationally as an expert in the specialist fields of light music, jazz and music for screen, as well as a passionate advocate for British music.   John studied composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music and won all the major conducting prizes and the coveted Tagore Gold Medal for the most outstanding student in his year.

Further information regarding John Wilson and the John Wilson Orchestra may be found here

John Treherne MBE Director of the Gateshead Youth Orchestra; remembers John Wilson as a prodigiously talented pupil, whose percussion teacher George Robinson often said that  ‘He (John Wilson) would put Gateshead on the map.’ This is certainly the case – his frequent appearances at  Promenade Concerts and the Sage Gateshead, and regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 bear witness to this.
John spent a week with the Music Service on work experience at the age of 16. He joined a workshop team, and after a day’s touring primary schools sat down and created an extraordinarily effective composition for the musicians in the team.

We are really excited that John Wilson has further consolidated his Gateshead Youth Orchestra association and are delighted that he has agreed to be the Patron of the Gateshead Youth Orchestra.

We are always in need of help at concerts and fundraising events.  If you are able to assist us at any of these events, please e – mail us at info@g-y-o.org.uk or speak to a  Friends trustee,  or Barbara Murray and provide us with your contact details.

We are also in need of  raffle prizes for events, a donation box is usually available in the entranceway of the Gateshead Schools’ Music Service area at the Dryden Centre or give your donations to a Friends trustee or ensemble leader.  Thank you.