Maestro | YPSO | Jeremy Cavaterra | Soumili Mukherjee | Soren Pang | Back to Table of Contents

David Ramadanoff has been Music Director/Conductor since 1989. Under his leadership, YPSO has grown to a membership upwards of 100 young players from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and has gained wide recognition as an outstanding youth ensemble.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Ramadanoff began his professional studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Temple University. He was a doctoral candidate at The Juilliard School where he also taught conducting until Seiji Ozawa offered him the position of Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony.

Mr. Ramadanoff worked closely with Robert Page, William Smith, Herbert Blomstedt, Otto Werner Mueller, Seiji Ozawa, Eugen Jochum, Leonard Bernstein, and Gunther Schuller, and attended both Aspen and Tanglewood. He performed regularly on the San Francisco Symphony subscription concert series, continuing as Associate Conductor under Edo de Waart.

As Music Director, he developed and strengthened the Symphony’s educational programs and community concerts.

In 1980, Mr. Ramadanoff won the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award, and in 1982 made his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony. He served as Director of Orchestral Activities at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1984 to 1988 as well as Principal Conductor of the SFCM Orchestra. Mr. Ramadanoff has been guest conductor for performances with the Kansas City Philharmonic, the North Carolina Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Napa Symphony, Santa Cruz Symphony, and Fort Collins (Colorado) Symphony. 

In addition to YPSO, Mr. Ramadanoff is Music Director/Conductor of the Master Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra and the Conductor of the California Sound Collective. Mr. Ramadanoff also served as the Music Director/Conductor of the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra from 1983 to 2015.

Maestro | YPSO | Jeremy Cavaterra | Soumili Mukherjee | Soren Pang | Back to Table of Contents

Celebrating its 85th season in 2021-22, Young People’s Symphony Orchestra is the oldest youth orchestra in California and the first independent youth orchestra in the nation. Founded in Berkeley in 1936, YPSO has developed the musical talents and skills of thousands of students in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today we are the top regional youth orchestra located in the East Bay and serve musicians who live in 31 cities in seven counties including Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano, and Sonoma. Many YPSO alumni are internationally distinguished musicians and prominent community members.

Our mission is to guide young musicians, ages 11-21, to achieve excellence within an orchestral setting. We provide an educational environment that fosters accomplishment, serves as a cultural resource for the community, and builds future audience by instilling a passion for music. We encourage young people to become exemplary musicians, and young musicians to become exemplary people.

In his 33nd season with the orchestra, Music Director/Conductor David Ramadanoff leads a team of master teachers who provide specialized sectional coaching each week, addressing technical and musical issues unique to their instruments. Student applicants audition for placement into YPSO in Spring and Summer for the following season.

Maestro | YPSO | Jeremy Cavaterra | Soumili Mukherjee | Soren Pang | Back to Table of Contents

Jeremy Cavaterra has established himself as a very busy composer and pianist in the United States and abroad. Reviewing his Monterey Suite for orchestra, San Francisco bay area critic Joseph Gold wrote:

“Cavaterra would hold his own in any period of music history. What sets this contemporary music apart, and high above the others, is rhapsodic melodic line and brilliant orchestration which is never heavy or overbearing.”

Born in New York City in 1971 and educated at Manhattan School of Music, Jeremy now lives in California. From 2010–2018 he was Composer-in-Residence for The Salastina Society chamber music series in Los Angeles. Since 2018 he has been Composer-in-Residence for The Young People’s Symphony Orchestra in the San Francisco bay area.

Jeremy's work spans the range of ensembles from solo instrumental, vocal and choral, chamber, through symphonic orchestral works. Recent premières include Nemeton, for oboe and strings; Capriccio Concertante for clarinet, strings, and harp; Lost Coast, commissioned and performed by The Mission Chamber Orchestra of San Jose; and Ascent to the Sierras, a symphonic tone-poem commissioned by The Young People’s Symphony Orchestra.

YPSO is proud to feature a world premiere of his newly piece commissioned for its 85th Anniversary celebration - Rhapsody On A Windy Night.

For more information, Visit  jeremycavaterra.com

Maestro | YPSO | Jeremy Cavaterra | Soumili Mukherjee | Soren Pang | Back to Table of Contents

Soumili Mukherjee is 17 years old and a senior at Campolindo High School. She has been studying bassoon with Cyrle Perry for 5 years, and plays the piano, clarinet, and guitar as well. This is her fourth year playing bassoon with YPSO.

She has participated in the California All-State Honor Bands for the past 3 years, in the Symphony Orchestra in 2021 and as principal chair bassoon in the Wind Symphony in 2020 and 2022. In February of 2022, she performed with the Honors Performance Series Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. In addition to this performance, she performed Weber’s “Hungarian Fantasy” with her school earlier this year, as one of their concerto competition winners.

Next fall, she will be attending the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins with a major in bassoon performance and a minor in human biology.

In her free time, she enjoys arranging music, amateur animation, playing D&D, and spreading bassoon propaganda to every young musician she meets. She is excited to share this music with you, and incredibly thankful to the people at YPSO for this opportunity!

Maestro | YPSO | Jeremy Cavaterra | Soumili Mukherjee | Soren Pang | Back to Table of Contents

Maestro | YPSO | Jeremy Cavaterra | Soumili Mukherjee | Soren Pang | Back to Table of Contents