MA Top 30 Professional: Louis Scaglione

President, CEO and Music Director
Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Music Institute

Being the music director of a major, internationally touring youth orchestra for nearly three decades is a feat in itself. Being the organization’s president and CEO, too? That’s a rare achievement. 

Louis Scaglione is in a league of his own. He has led the 85-year-old Philadelphia Youth Orchestra—expanded on his watch to the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Music Institute, or PYOMI—to exponential growth. Today it serves about 700 students in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and boasts 11 divisions. When Temple University announced it would cut its prep division’s brass band, Scaglione quickly moved to absorb it into the PYOMI umbrella; just last year, the organization added a jazz orchestra and a wind ensemble. It courted some $2 million in revenue (fiscal 2023), conferring significant scholarships and financial aid for young musicians.

Scaglione also steered the organization through COVID-19, managing to avoid what could have been an existential crisis: “I think we were the first in the region to bring students back for in-person musical activities…and we actually came out the other end stronger as an organization,” he says. 

Scaglione first joined PYOMI in 1997 as an associate conductor, leading its junior orchestra. Shortly thereafter, in 2001, the organization’s structure changed and it named Scaglione as its very first executive director. Around the same time, PYOMI’s Music Director Joseph Primavera was preparing to step down after a recordbreaking
51 years at the helm. As associate conductor, Scaglione was next in line to succeed him; he did so, changing his position to “President and CEO” and adding “Music Director” to his list of titles in the 2004/05 season.

“A ship always needs a captain; you have to chart the course. But it’s the crew that gets you there: my staff, the faculty, the Board of Trustees. They really move it in the direction I want to go,” Scaglione says.