TYO

Thames Youth Orchestra (TYO) was founded in 2005. Initially a collaboration between Tiffin School and The Tiffin Girls' School in Kingston upon Thames, by the end of its first year the orchestra was welcoming players from six additional local schools. That number has since grown to around 30, with members now coming from schools and colleges in Kingston, Richmond, Wimbledon, Sutton, Hounslow, Ealing, Wandsworth, and rural Surrey, as well as gap year and home-schooled students from across South West London. In 2018 TYO began a partnership with Kingston University as its official Orchestra-in-Residence, forming a core part of the university's community work and offering educational opportunities to its Masters students.

Underpinning the TYO ethos from the start has been a challenging, adventurous approach to programming, in which well-established large-scale orchestral favourites have been prepared alongside twentieth century rarities and new commissions. TYO has made a feature of exploring lesser-heard corners of twentieth and twenty-first century music, programming music by Panufnik (Sinfonia Sacra), Sallinen (Symphonies 1 and 4), Messiaen (Les Offrandes Oubliées), Adès (…but all shall be well), Takemitsu (A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden), Milhaud (Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit), Honneger (Pacific 231), Roy Harris (Symphony No. 3), Korngold (film scores to The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row, Captain Blood, The Prince and the Pauper) and Varèse (Ionisation), alongside such repertoire staples as The Planets, Pini Da Roma, Appalachian Spring, Taras Bulba, The Firebird, Scheherazade; and symphonies by Mahler (Nos. 1, 2, 4), Bruckner (No. 4), Shostakovich (Nos. 5, 10, 15), Vaughan Williams (Nos. 2, 3, 5), and Sibelius (Nos. 1 and 5).

TYO has performed Copland's Lincoln Portrait with Simon Callow narrating, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade to live illustration by James Mayhew, and Elgar's Cello Concerto with Guy Johnston as soloist. The orchestra has featured in several BBC television programmes, has performed at London's Barbican Centre, Royal Albert Hall, Cadogan Hall, St John's Smith Square, and on tour in venues in Germany, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.

TYO's rehearsal process is based upon weekly sectionals followed by a full orchestral rehearsal. Sectionals are run by expert professional coaches, and allow levels of detail to be explored which are only practical in smaller ensemble contexts. Over the years TYO has acquired an extensive collection of instruments and, unusually for a youth orchestra, rehearses weekly with a complement of full orchestral percussion, including celeste, tubular bells, and harp.

Many TYO alumni have gone on to enjoy successful professional careers in music, as instrumentalists, singers, composers, educators, academics and administrators.

TYO rehearses at Tiffin Girls' School in  Kingston upon Thames on Mondays  from 6.15 - 8.45pm during term time.

The orchestra's sister ensemble, the Thames Youth Jazz Orchestra (TYJO), is a full-strength big band taking players Grades 7 and above. TYJO plays from an extensive pad which includes the major staples of the big band repertoire, from 1930s Swing (Basie, Ellington, Goodman etc.) to contemporary charts (Mintzer, Goodwin, Mingus), and including a wide range of arrangements of film and TV themes, chart hits, Afro-Cuban standards (Puente, Sandoval etc.), selections by Sammy Nestico, Neal Hefti, Quincy Jones and classic Ella Fitzgerald/Sinatra/Rat Pack vocal charts. On occasion (chiefly on tour), the two ensembles, TYO and TYJO, combine to play studio orchestra classics from the golden age of Hollywood, transcribed by Musical Director, Simon Ferris.

TYJO rehearses in the Walden Hall at Tiffin School in Kingston upon Thames from 5.30 - 7.00pm on Fridays during term time.