[The program] provides a range of opportunities to study, perform, and rehearse in a context that balances structure with flexibility, guidance and independence, and discipline with inspiration.” —Chamber Music America magazine

Jazz
The New York Youth Symphony’s Jazz Band, under the direction of Matt Holman, is a 17-member ensemble dedicated to studying, rehearsing, and performing classic big band jazz music. Modeled on the bands of the 1930’s and 1940’s, the Jazz program preserves this heritage and, keeping with jazz traditions, incorporates it into the current and emerging styles that define the genre for the present generation. Now in its 11th season, students from the Jazz program have been fortunate to perform with featured soloists including Joe Lovano, Scott Wendholt, Suzanne Morrison, Steve Turre, Warren Vaché,
Victor Goines, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath, Joe Locke, Eric Reed, Lew Soloff, Gary Smulyan and Frank Wess, giving students a chance to play alongside today’s most exciting professional musicians.

Composition
The New York Youth Symphony’s Composition Program, formerly known as “Making Score,” is the first series of workshops in the country for young musicians to explore the world of composition and orchestration. The program includes workshops exploring the musical thought of a wide variety of composers, with a focus on instrumentation and orchestration. In addition to study, students compose new works for various ensembles, including chamber ensembles, jazz orchestra, and chamber orchestra, which are performed by student ensembles.

Apprentice Conducting Program
“The orchestra has been a training ground for conductors who have gone on to bigger things.” -The New York Times

The world’s finest emerging conductors have found the Symphony’s podium to be an unparalleled opportunity to sharpen their craft, develop their talent, and gain exposure in front of New York’s discerning audiences. The Robert L. Poster Apprentice Conductor Program gives aspiring orchestral conductors the opportunity to study the art of conducting through rehearsal technique, stick technique, score analysis, podium time, and observation, under the guidance of the NYYS Music Director and Assistant Conductor.

First Music
“The most impressive record for championing new music of any ensemble in the United States.” -The New York Times

First Music, the New York Youth Symphony’s young composer competition, commissions America’s best emerging orchestra, chamber music, and jazz composers under age 30. Initiated in 1984, it has been acknowledged widely as one of the leading forces in the United States for bringing the work of gifted young composers to the public’s attention.

“During the last two decades, no youth orchestra in the country has been more relentlessly committed to generating new music than the New York Youth Symphony.” -Symphony Magazine

First Music has awarded commissions over 100 of America’s best young composers since 1984. The winner of numerous awards and accolades, this ongoing project introduces traditional audiences, as well as the musicians themselves, to new trends in music. Three awards are given seasonally for orchestral and jazz compositions and one for chamber music.

Visit the New York Youth Symphony

[b. 1991] is a young American solo percussionist advancing the classical and contemporary repertoire.

Ferry also has a passion for multimedia performance, collaborating with artists of other disciplines to deepen the concert experience. His multimedia performance at the Rochester Fringe Festival was reviewed as “breathtaking… all that such festivals are supposed to be: funny, boundary-pushing, thought-provoking.”

In 2013, Ferry received the prestigious Performer’s Certificate from his alma mater, the Eastman School of Music, recognizing “outstanding performing ability.”

You can listen to a sample of Peter Ferry’s music below.

Vibraphone Concerto mvmt I – Composed by Emmanuel Séjourné – Played by Peter Ferry

[Jonathan Price’s role] was played by an Asian-American actor. So, that was a big moment in the community.

Shortly after that is when I started getting involved on the Council at Equity as part of the elected leadership and also I started doing some non-traditional cast roles, like Julie in Carousel. And I started feeling like I wanted to shine a light on them because it was showing something positive that was happening. And so I think that’s when I started to think about speaking up in terms of advocacy on a positive note, and once I started to do more traditionally non-cast roles the more I realized it was something that was difficult to get and needed to be talked about.

JT: You mentioned that, as a young person, you didn’t have any Asian-American role models. Where did it come from that you decided having a career in the performing arts as an Asian-American was even possible?

CTJ: Well, I think it was just because I loved it. And my parents never said that I couldn’t do anything. They never put up any obstacle to anything in my whole life. So, I think I grew up in this environment where I was like: “Yeah, I love that. I’m going to go do that.” Now, to be fair, there was Baayork Lee, who’s been a friend ever since, or knew that we had a gap in time where we didn’t see each other, but she was the original Connie in “A Chorus Line”. So, she was out there and she was dancing since she was five years old, but she wasn’t doing, necessarily, the stuff that I identified with. When I saw “A Chorus Line” I wanted to be Cassie. [We both laugh.]

JT: So, when you did get out and were auditioning, were there any circumstances at the start of your career that kept you from getting roles or auditions?

CTJ: For a long time I wasn’t even seen for anything. I wouldn’t even get in the room. As a matter of fact, my younger friends now are seen at auditions as a matter of course – which is awesome. But back in those days, I had just switched agents in ’91, and when my new agent called me to tell me that I had an audition for Julie in “Carousel” at the Hangar Theatre, I really was surprised. I really said: “Wait, I actually have an appointment. And they’re really going to see me? They’re going let me audition for it?” And so I remember going, feeling a little ashamed because I thought the other women there would look at me like: “What is she doing here?” And I get in the room and people didn’t go running, screaming from the theatre. It was actually a really well received production. Then what happens is, I think, people feel that they have permission to cast that way. Someone once referred to me as the “poster child for non-traditional casting”, and so I did all these Soprano roles all over the country. And, I think, like I said, once someone says: “Oh, you did that. I can hire you for this.” And so I started to feel like the more I was speaking up about it in a positive way, that was my style of advocacy. My advocacy has evolved over time through experience and necessity, but I think at the time I identified this ability to talk to people about the positive aspects of it; at the good things that would happen if non-traditional casting had happened, if there were more inclusion, if we were reflecting society more as it really is. And less on the militant, victimized, “we’ve been wronged” point of view; which has a place, too, but is not my style.

JT: What do you think you bring to the stage in a non-traditionally cast production that an audience member wouldn’t see in a traditionally cast show?

CTJ: I always feel that, to me, the arts have this opportunity to get people to think about things, maybe, in a different way – by seeing a play, or hearing a song – that puts a human face on a set of circumstance, and opens up your mind to different cultures and different ways of thinking. It’s part of being an artist and a writer. You’re trying to empathize and understand the human condition: What makes a person do what they do? And I think that’s what a non-traditionally cast show offers is, really, reflecting society and the world as it is today.

JT: I think this is a good segue for you to talk about your documentary film that you produced with your husband, award-winning filmmaker Bruce Johnson, TRANSCENDING – THE WAT MISAKA STORY, and specifically, how you came to this story and how have you been changed and inspired by seeing this story told?

CTJ: Well, Wat Misaka is 89 years old now. He lives in Salt Lake City. He was the first non-Caucasian person to play pro-basketball in the 1947 Knicks, three years before the first African Americans played. He was a big college star for the University of Utah in ’44 and ’47, which is really significant when you think about the time. We were in the middle of WWII. They won the NCAA in ’44 and then the NIT in ’47. In between he went off to serve in the Army. So, that’s sort of the nugget of the story.

I was helping produce and sing in a concert for some friends of an organization in San Francisco called the Japanese Culture and Community Center of Northern California. So, I was helping produce these concerts called “Asian-Americans on Broadway”. And we were in the Executive Director’s office printing out our boarding passes to go home and my husband noticed this photograph of an Asia-American basketball player, and you could tell that it was from a different period, because of the dress, and so he started asking questions. I had just written a sports screenplay, and Bruce, my husband, says to me: “Would you be interested in writing another sports screenplay?” And I say: “Well, I don’t know.” I had just finished this one and, you know, and he says: “Paul has just told me this story about this guy Wat Misaka.” And so I’m intrigued. Why haven’t we ever heard of him? That’s a pretty big barrier to break. And so I went home and started researching him, and I decided I needed to tell this story.

So, I started talking to some people and they said, you know, you should do an oral history. And so once we realized that we were going out there to interview him, we decided to just make it a documentary. And from there the circles just kept getting bigger. We had our first screening in 2008 in Salt lake City, it was an official selection for the Rhode Island International Film Festival in 2009, we won award for direction from the Roving Eye Documentary Film Festival, Sports Illustrated helped us get a profile of Wat in the Basketball Hall of Fame, every major sports publication had featured Wat, the Knicks honored him center court in 2009 at Madison Square Garden, President Obama invited Wat to a ceremony at the White House and mentioned him in his speech.

And, you know, it really means a lot to me to acknowledge people when they do something great. And it was really bothering me – in the biggest sense of the word – that this man was not recognized for breaking his barriers. He was sort of reduced to a footnote in some books. He did not last long in the Knicks, and that’s probably a large part of the reason that he was reduced to a footnote. But I still felt like this is significant, and it was a barrier that was broken and we needed to do something about it. We did a screening of the film in Sacramento, and when I saw these little kids lining up to get his autograph, I just thought: this is a seminal point in my life, because something that Bruce and I really believed in, we worked our butts off to make it happen on a wing and a prayer basically, is having this impact; it’s bringing this man to the forefront in our community, and I’m not even Japanese-American, but there’s something about the shared Asian-American experience of having to overcome obstacles that every immigrant community has had. I just felt that this is so important that we brought the story out and these kids are seeing what’s possible for them. And I turn to Bruce and say: “If nothing else happens with this film, this is why we did this. This man now sees that his legacy is present for all people to see. And to have him know that: You did something that is meaningful and will last forever, because you broke that barrier.”

JT: You often tell people to “go where you are celebrated, not just tolerated”. How do you maintain your positivity and vision in all your work?

CTJ: I think part of it is the idea of surrounding yourself with people who are positive as well. See that’s part of it. Because, you know, we all have these hopes and dreams and goals, and if you’re in the right environment you can be put down pretty quickly, and you can lose faith pretty easily. So I think part of it is surrounding yourself with people who are as eager as you are to dwell in possibility. That’s another thing that I love to say. Because, really, the truth is, and I’m not a Pollyanna, but I think part of the good thing about being older and being in this business for so long is that I’ve had a lot of disappointments and I’ve noticed how easy it could be to just give up. You reach many forks in the road at any given time and you can choose to go down the path of self sabotage and losing faith in yourself and your ability to make something happen, or you can go the other way and try to explore and maximize your potential. I’m always thinking about that, too – and figure out what’s possible. And that has been tempered with a lot, a lot, a lot of disappointment and still believing that I have something to say. And trying to find new ways to say it all the time.

Someone asked me in an interview recently, when I was doing Dolly: “You know you’re a writer, you’re an actor, you’re blah, blah, blah, so what would you call yourself, and don’t say you’re everything.” And I said: “I’m a storyteller”. And whether that’s through my acting, my writing, my singing, my directing, my producing, or whatever, I think that trying to surround myself with the kind of energy that nurtures that vision for possibility is what’s at the root of that saying. It came from one of my first screenwriting teachers, and it really hit me because you really could go and dwell in these places where people are like: “Oh yeah, you’re alright.” But why would you do that? Why are you doing that? There’s always that question, you know, in the arts especially: Why would you put yourself through the hardship that you do? And the answer is because you have to, because there’s nothing more satisfying than having a creative response to a problem. I’ll say that. You might not be able to fix everything but if you can have a creative response then it’s going to make life a lot better. For you and other people.

JT: Hearing about all your accomplishments and the path that you’ve forged, it seems to me that you’ve become the Asian-American role model you lacked as a child. How does that feel, and do you have a message for those young people that look at you and are inspired?

CTJ: The only reason I’m not completely embarrassed by that question is that I have been hearing that more and more lately from young people who come up to me and say: “Now I feel like I can do it.” And, you know, it’s amazing. And I hope they can. And I usually tell people to just keep being open to possibility and to make sure you’re up for the challenge. So, to me that means a lot of different things; it means working as hard as you possibly can to not only be the best artist you can be but to be the best person you can be. So, stay open to other points of view and have a life and enjoy it and enrich yourself by looking around. And don’t take “no” for an answer, because I think that’s really easy for any of us to do that. And you can’t let all the negative stuff squash you.

So, I guess I tell people that if you really have a passion to do this and to express yourself through art, you have to find a way to do it. And it probably will look different than you once imagined it would. All of my dreams that have come true so far have not looked like what I imagined when I was that little girl watching the TONY awards from my parents’ living room. And that’s actually kind of great, because that means there were things that I didn’t even imagine. And to try to stay present. It’s really hard these days. We can be a million other places instead of doing this. [Pointing to us talking.] Or, looking outside and saying: “Oh, the air smells like this today,” or “that does this to me.” To really stay present and take it all in.