Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra

Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO) is a youth orchestra in Milwaukee. MYSO has been offering training in ensemble musicianship to young people in southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois since 1956.

This 120-member symphony orchestra presents concerts, each season including a concerto performance by a soloist and a choral work.

The musicians in the Senior Symphony have undertaken several domestic and international tours. Most students in this group are in grades 10-12. The most recent international tour was completed in summer 2009 when the Senior Symphony went to Canada. Previously, their "Beijing and Beyond" tour through China. Before that, their last international tour was in July 1997, when MYSO performed in Spain and Italy. In June 2000, the Senior Symphony had a trip to the National Youth Orchestra Festival in Sarasota, Florida as one of five invited youth orchestras. In spring 1999, the orchestra performed in Montreal,Quebec, Canada.

In 1994, the 114-member Senior Symphony performed in New York's Carnegie Hall. In 1991, MYSO represented the United States at the Aberdeen (Scotland) International Youth Festival of the Performing Arts, with additional performances in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

In 1987, they traveled to Switzerland, France, and Austria.

Margery Deutsch has been the conductor and music director of MYSO’s Senior Symphony since 1987 and Shelby Dixon has been a MYSO conductor since 1984.

In 2015, they traveled to Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary.

MYSO’s second symphony orchestra, numbering 140 members, plays a variety of original works. Most students in this group are in grades 9-12.

Beginning his 43rd season with MYSO, Ron Melby serves as a Music Director of Philharmonia. Melby taught in the West Allis-West Milwaukee School District for 32 years and retired as orchestra director at Nathan Hale High School in 1995. He served on the staff of the Wisconsin High School Honors Orchestra for two years and directed at the first National Youth Orchestra Festival in Washington, D.C. in 1977.

Melby received his BMusEd degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and has graduate credits in String Development and Music Education from that institution. His education also includes summer institute study with Shinichi Suzuki, George Bornhoff and Paul Roland. In 1993, Melby received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the American String Teachers Association/Wisconsin String Teachers Association. In 2002 Melby was honored by the Civic Music Association with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

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