The Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (YSOU) was founded in 2016 by conductor
Oksana Lyniv. Lyniv modeled the YSOU after the
Bundesjugendorchester, a German national youth orchestra. She founded the orchestra with the support of this orchestra, and the support of both the
Beethovenfest in Bonn and the broadcaster
Deutsche Welle. The first concerts were held in August 2017 together with the Bundesjugendorchester. This joint group played four concerts, in
Lviv and Kyiv in Ukraine, and Bonn and Berlin in Germany. The performance in Lviv was part of the
Mozart Festival LvivMozArt that Lyniv had founded. It was carried out in collaboration with the Slovenian Youth Orchestra in Ljubljana. A concert tour that summer, name "United for the future", included around 30 concerts at ten music festivals in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, including Herbstgold in
Eisenstadt,
Bachfest Leipzig,
Munich Opera Festival,
Young Euro Classic in Berlin, and
Lucerne Festival. The Berlin Philharmonic became patron of the YSOU as well as of the
Kyiv Symphony Orchestra in 2023. In 2023, Lyniv conducted the YSOU playing the German premiere of
Odessa Rhapsody by
Evgeni Orkin. This
tone poem in four
movements related to the city Odesa, was dedicated to Lyniv by the composer. It was first performed in Paris the previous year and had earned the composer the European Composer's Prize. The conductor contrasted the work with Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony in a concert of Young Euro Classic at the
Konzerthaus Berlin. Reviewer
Eleonore Büning wrote for
Der Tagesspiegel that the players were in "professional top form". As part of their Spring 2024 tour, the YSOU gave a concert at the
Casals Forum of the
Kronberg Academy. Lyniv and the YSOU began that concert with ''Maria's City'' by Ukrainian composer
Zoltan Almashi; a work named for the city of
Mariupol. It was followed by Ravel's
Pavane pour une infante défunte, Mendelssohn's
Violin Concerto, and Schumann's
First Symphony. The solo violinist was
Dmytro Udovychenko, a student of the Kronberg Academy. A reviewer from the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted "lament, aggression and hope" in the concise opening piece and a refreshing view on Mendelssohn's concerto. == References ==