MA Top 30 Professional: Russell Steinberg

Founder and Artistic Director
Los Angeles Youth Orchestra

The centerpiece of the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra’s 25thanniversary concert in November was Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, just the sort of complex, challenging repertoire favored by orchestra Founder and Artistic Director Russell Steinberg.

“A youth orchestra is going to have intonation and ensemble issues—the players are still mastering technique—but they can create an interpretation just as convincing as that of a professional orchestra,” says Steinberg, a composer with a Ph.D. in music from Harvard University, where he studied with Leon Kirchner. “In fact, sometimes and in some ways, it’s more convincing. A professional orchestra works on a piece for a week, and the conductor gets across whatever he can, while I have the luxury of working on it with the orchestra for a whole semester, getting the music into their bones, talking about the political context of the piece, and trying out different ideas.”

With the Shostakovich, he wanted his young musicians to develop their own interpretation of the symphony, which premiered in 1937 when the composer was at odds with Soviet authorities. “I tell the students that each of their parts is telling a story, and they need to play it with a specific idea that they’re trying to get across.”

LAYO has up to 120 members from 8 to 18 years old—divided between intermediate and advanced orchestras—who come to Sunday rehearsals at the Encino Community Center from all over Los Angeles County. To audition, a student needs to have had two years of private lessons. Concerts have been performed at a variety of venues through the years, including the top-flight Ambassador Auditorium. The orchestra has gone on tour to Carnegie Hall twice, to Italy, and two times to Vienna and Prague.