San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra

The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) is a youth orchestra organized by the San Francisco Symphony. The SFSYO performs an annual concert series and has made several recordings. The orchestra rehearses in Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall and has been directed by Radu Paponiu since the 2024-2025 season.

The SFSYO is tuition-free program. It has a training program where members of the San Francisco Symphony coach Youth Orchestra members in individual instrument sectionals every Saturday. Nowhere else do young musicians receive this kind of regular, direct access to guidance from some of the finest orchestral musicians in the world.

Throughout its history, the SFSYO has performed and recorded in some of the world's principal concert halls including the Elbphilharmonie, Royal Concertgebouw, Wiener Musikverein, Berliner Philharmonie, Mariinsky Theatre, Smetana Hall, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

Notable performances throughout the SFSYO's history include its 25th anniversary concert in May 2007 with a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and soloists from San Francisco Opera; the 1996 performance of John Cage's Renga and Apartment House 1776 with four surviving members of The Grateful Dead joining the orchestra; the 2005 performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 (conductor Edwin Outwater's farewell concert as the orchestra's 5th Music Director); and the 2008 performance of Dvořák's New World Symphony in memory of the SFSYO's benefactor Agnes Albert. In 2009, the orchestra also hosted in the region's first Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival at Davies Symphony Hall, which is a bi-annual benefit concert where youth orchestras around the Bay Area perform for each other. During these festivals, a Festival Orchestra is also organized consisting of top musicians from the participating youth orchestras, as an opportunity for them to rehearse and perform together.

In 2012, the SFSYO won a 2011-12 ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of American Music on foreign tours. Later that year the orchestra released a recording of their performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 live at the Berliner Philharmonie. In 2015, the SFSYO was awarded the Best Orchestral Performance Award in the Bay Area for the 2014/2015 season by the San Francisco Classical Voice for their performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 5. In addition to its performance at Davies Symphony Hall, the SFSYO also performed Mahler's Symphony No. 5 at the Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine, Berliner Philharmonie, Royal Concertgebouw, and Smetana Hall during their 2014/2015 season.