Press Enter to search
The Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra (VFJO) is an international orchestral training programme for musicians aged 15 to 18. Students are coached by a roster of established players from around the globe, many of whom are Verbier Festival Orchestra alumni and who now perform in prominent orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris and Frankfurter Opern-und Museumsorchester. Over three weeks, these young musicians learn, rehearse and perform in Verbier and Le Châble. The VFJO’s Music Director is James Gaffigan.
Founded in 2005 and considered one of the top chamber orchestras in the world, the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra is made up of alumni of the Verbier Festival Orchestra training programme and who now hold positions in leading international ensembles. The extensive list of orchestras is impressive, and includes, among others, the Vienna, Berlin, and Israel Philharmonics, and the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Concertgebouw, Tonhalle, and London Symphony Orchestras. The VFCO is the resident chamber orchestra of the Verbier Festival, and the six concerts it performs at each summer’s Festival are led by both its acclaimed Music Director, Gábor Takács-Nagy, as well as other illustrious conductors such as Antonio Pappano, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Daniel Harding. The orchestra is often joined by soloists such as András Schiff, Leonidas Kavakos, Joshua Bell, Pinchas Zukerman, Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang, Daniil Trifonov and Gautier Capuçon. As an ambassador of the Verbier Festival, the orchestra’s celebrated tours have brought its electrifying energy to audiences at many of the world’s great concert halls and festivals. Its first recording was in 2006 with the violinist/conductor Maxim Vengerov, and was followed by a 22-concert tour in North America and Europe. Since then, the orchestra has toured regularly throughout the world and, since 2008, has taken up residence for a week each autumn at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria.
The Verbier Festival Orchestra (VFO) is a rite of passage for today’s exceptional young orchestra musicians aged 18 to 28. It is recognized as one of the best training orchestras on the planet. Since its founding in 2000, the orchestra has brought together rising talents with the foremost conductors and soloists of our time.