Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association

An extraordinary well led non-profit. The board, led by C. Swartz, is excellent. The Ececutive Director, Deborah Liles is a wonderful and capable leader. The music director has helped grow this organization and provided thousands of children performance opportunities at all disciplines of the music world. Truly a giving organization and worthy of community support.

Great experiences. Great faculty. Difficult office personel. Very costly as well. And the money goes to the dumbest things, like new windows that they kept bragging about concert after concert. That money used to go to things that were actually useful, such as scholarship money for international tours.

My daughter plays violin and loves playing with the group she's in. Positive support combined with high expectations and a demand for personal responsibility and self discipline, this organization trains kids for professional musicianship and life in general and places them in groups according to their ability level. It is so refreshing in this world of "everybody gets a trophy" to see hard work and accomplishment actually rewarded. Kids must audition, and must work hard to advance musically before moving to the top tier groups, which I think is fantastic. Every time I pick her up from rehearsal, she's always in a fantastic mood. The kids that make it into the group are usually very bright, well-adjusted nice kids. My daughter said she feels like she "fits in" with the kids in her ensemble. Really a great organization.

My daughter has been involved for four years and CSYSA has been such an amazing organization for her to be a part of. She has grown as a musician and has been such a positive community for her to grow personally. The leadership really cares about developing character and also just they just really care about the kids. We are so lucky to have this organization in town!!

Colorado Springs Youth Symphony has been such a gift for my son! He has made so much progress and we always look forward to the amazing concerts. All of their conductors are wonderful and we’ve had a great experience so far! My only regret is not enrolling him at a younger age!