Anna Mitchell

This season, the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra Program welcomed a new conductor to the YOP family. Starting this September, String Sinfonietta is now conducted by Christie-Jo Adams: former orchestra teacher, acclaimed arts administrator, and a 1989 graduate of the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra Program.  Originally known as the Young Performer’s Program, YOP began as a

Congratulations to the YOP class of 2026! This spring, twenty students graduated from the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra Program. We’re excited to honor each student at our May 2026 spring concerts, on social media, and in the article below. Blurbs are written using information provided in our annual senior survey, and students are listed in

The Richmond Symphony School of Music’s Honors Program, open to members of the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra (RSYO), originally piloted in fall 2021. Designed to immerse students within the world of classical music, the program originally featured weekly lectures on music history and theory, conducting, arts administration, and more, even including a chamber music component

Each year, students from across the country apply to be members of the U.S. Senate Page Program, in which high school juniors and seniors spend a semester working as staff members in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. Only thirty students are selected for this incredibly competitive program each cycle—and this fall, one of those students was the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra

This February marked the return of one of the Youth Orchestra Program’s favorite annual events: the Side-by-Side concert with the Richmond Symphony and the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra (RSYO), which last occurred in full in February 2020.   Side-by-side concerts are a staple of youth orchestras across the country. In a side-by-side performance, members of a youth orchestra come

Teaching has always been a part of music education major Emily Mullen’s life. A lifelong educator, she taught her first private lesson at the age of nine, and recently began working as a student teacher during her final semester at Shenandoah Conservatory. But after nearly 20 years of devotion to the violin and viola, she