8 March, 1976: following a unanimous vote by the European Parliament to found the Orchestra, the EUYO – or European Community Youth Orchestra, as it was known at the time – was officially established.

The EP resolution was already a milestone of development: our story goes back as far as 1948, when our Founding President Joy Bryer took a student cycling holiday from Paris to Brussels, where she witnessed the devastated landscapes of post-WW2 Europe. Later, she married a South African, Lionel Bryer; together, they believed that music could show the path to a better way to live, stronger than apartheid or war.

Their idea to support international understanding through young people playing music together first took the form of festivals in St Moritz (1969) and Aberdeen (1973). When the United Kingdom joined the European Community, Lionel perceived that Europe was not just an economic community, but a cultural one. Joy, realising that young people working together in harmony would not inspire people if the results were not also superb, persuaded Claudio Abbado to conduct. Such is the very brief history of how our Orchestra was born; fifty years on from the European Parliament’s Resolution, we continue to be Cultural Ambassadors for the sustainable, human values of the European Union, and the belief that we are better together than apart.