Western Balkans Youth Orchestra

Welcome to the official channel of the Western Balkans Youth Orchestra, a professional youth orchestra established as a long-term project in 2019.

Making music brings people together. This applies to young musicians in the Western Balkans region, where peaceful cooperation across borders and ethnic divides is still an issue after the breakup of Yugoslavia over 25 years ago.

As an extension of the successful concept of the European Summer Music Academies, the WBYO was created in the summer of 2019 and will go operational in spring 2020. As a project orchestra, it will come together once or twice a year at different locations in the Western Balkans and in changing configurations. It will bring together young professional musicians in equal numbers from each of the six non-EU Western Balkan countries* (AL, BiH, KS, MNE, NMK and SRB). 

*) In the WBYO context, the designation is without prejudice about positions on status.