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Teaching children the language of music, since 1962

If your child can only play one note, we will write them a part.

Almost every child learns to speak, and no one is turned away for starting with a single word. Our founder wrote tailor-made parts so children at every level could play the same piece together, and that is still the method. Your child auditions so we can hear where they are and how they learn. Then we build the music around them.
Start with an audition
How the method works
Music is a language. Very few children cannot learn a language.
Dr. Yeou-Cheng Ma, M.D., Executive Director since 1984
Syosset, New York. Ages 3 to 18

It takes one Saturday a week.

Orchestra, chamber music and musicianship all happen in a single day, so a family makes one trip and gets the rest of the week back. Siblings come together. Your child performs on stage twice in their first season.
Families drive in from New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, and across New York City, some for hours each way, because the program meets each child exactly where they are.
12:00 PM
Musicianship, ear training and composition
1:00 PM
Kinder Orchestra and Mallets & Bars
1:30 PM
Sinfonia and the Junior Symphonic Ensemble
2:30 PM
Pre-Kinder, Elite String, Percussion and the chamber groups
4:30 PM
Wind Symphonic and the Young Symphonic Ensemble, until 7:30
Flexible
Private lessons, scheduled with your teacher
The path

Nothing your child starts on limits where they finish.

A child can begin before they can read a note and still end up on the Alice Tully stage. They can be a beginner in one room and advanced in another on the same Saturday, and they never have to choose only one instrument.
Where children begin
Mallets & Bars
Where children start when they cannot yet read music. Rhythm comes first, exactly as a child learns the sound of speech before words. Its first thirty minutes run inside Kinder Orchestra, and it is a real route to a seat in the top ensemble, not a holding pattern.
The orchestras
Pre-Kinder & Kinder
Youngest beginners
Sinfonia
Developing players
Junior Symphonic
Intermediate
Young Symphonic
Performs at Alice Tully Hall
Alongside, at every level
Chamber Music
Musicianship
ITAP
Elite String Ensemble
Wind Ensemble
Percussion
Majors Program
Private lessons
Every ensemble performs twice a year: a winter concert and a spring concert.
Chamber musicians add two recitals, one in winter and one in spring.
The Young Symphonic Ensemble has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, every year since 1995.
Discovery Competition winners perform as soloists with the YSE, on any instrument they study here.
Two ways in

Build your child's Saturday.

Tell us their age, what they play, and roughly where they are. We’ll show you the Saturday that fits, and you can enroll from the same screen.

Which describes you?

New families audition first, so we can place your child properly. Returning families go straight to registration.
New to COS
Start with an audition. It isn’t a test. It’s how we hear where your child is and how they learn, so we can build their program around them.
Apply to audition →
Already with us
Choose your classes for the coming season and register. Sibling discounts and payment plans are applied automatically.
Register for 2026-27
Already registered for this season? Sign in to the parent portal for schedules, forms, absences and payments.
This season
2026-27
Next on stage
33rd Annual Discovery Gala
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. The Young Symphonic Ensemble with this year's Discovery Winner.
Date to confirm
Tickets
Dec
TBC
Winter Concert
All orchestras and ensembles
Jan
TBC
Winter Chamber Recital
Small ensembles
May
TBC
Spring Concert
All orchestras and ensembles
Jun
TBC
Spring Chamber Recital
Small ensembles
See the full season →
Discovery Competition
Open now
Open to every COS instrumentalist with a year here, on any instrument they study, including piano. Junior and Senior divisions.
Rules and application
One child

From never touching a violin to Carnegie Hall.

A first-generation Colombian-American who had never had a private lesson joined the violin section in eleventh grade. Two years later he played Carnegie Hall for the 50th Anniversary, and his mother, who had sacrificed everything and spoke little English, wept in the audience.
The barrier
No private lessons. An instrument the family could not afford.
The door
A place in the violin section, earned on grit and raw ability.
The proof
Carnegie Hall, two years later.
The moment
His mother in tears at the awards ceremony.
The outcome
A full scholarship to Emory, on Dr. Ma's recommendation.
Read more student stories
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center

32 consecutive years on one of the great stages.

The Young Symphonic Ensemble has presented the Discovery Gala at Alice Tully Hall every year since 1995, sharing the evening with some of the world’s most established concert artists. In 2019 the orchestra played Carnegie Hall for its 50th Anniversary.
The ensemble has also toured North America, the United Kingdom, and Asia, most recently three weeks across the Philippines and Taiwan in July 2025.
Yo-Yo Ma
Emanuel Ax
Sarah Chang
Jaime Laredo
Cecile Licad
Cho-Liang Lin
Sharon Robinson
Paula Robison
David Shifrin
Richard Stoltzman
Ray Chen
Guest artists who have appeared with COS students. Recency to confirm.
Three generations

Our first students were the founder's own children. One of them still runs the place.

In 1962 Dr. Hiao-Tsiun Ma founded COS and taught its first members, his daughter Yeou-Cheng and his son Yo-Yo. He retired in 1977 and the orchestra went dormant for seven years, until Yeou-Cheng and Michael Dadap restarted it in 1984. She is still the executive director today, and still teaches chamber music, ITAP, and private lessons on Saturdays.
Four of our ten faculty came up through these chairs, three of them now on the podium. Kevin Shue joined as a boy and conducts the Junior Symphonic Ensemble. Adrian Gutiérrez leads the Wind Symphonic Ensemble. Olivia Martinez won the very first Discovery Competition in 1995, and now conducts the Kinder Orchestra, the youngest children in the building.
4 of 10
Faculty members are COS alumni, nearly half the teaching staff
3 of 6
Administration and production staff are alumni
Since 1984
Dr. Yeou-Cheng Ma and Michael Dadap leading, 42 years
1962
Founded by Dr. Hiao-Tsiun Ma, whose first two students were his own children

And some of them bring their own children back.

Three COS alumni now drive their sons and daughters to the same Saturday they grew up in.
Portrait: alumnus parent with their child, both holding instruments
Benjamin
Alumnus, now a COS parent. Story and permission needed.
Portrait: alumnus parent with their child, both holding instruments
Eddie Lee
Alumnus, now a COS parent. Story and permission needed.
Portrait: alumnus parent with their child, both holding instruments
Nuby DeLeon
Alumnus, now a COS parent, drives three hours each way so his son can play here.
What it leads to

Rigorous musical training builds more than musicians.

Most COS children will not become professional players. Nearly all of them will carry the discipline somewhere else.
100%
Of COS graduates go on to college
25%
Of graduates admitted to Ivy League institutions
673
Students tracked, 1984 to 2025
18 → 200+
Members since the 1984 revival
Alumni include Yo-Yo Ma, Astrid Schween of the Juilliard Quartet, Caroline Kennedy, and violist Jordan Bak. Outcome figures are drawn from COS's own student tracking and are updated annually.
Support a young musician

In 1993 the board wanted to buy an advertisement.

Michael Dadap talked them out of it and put the money into scholarships instead, and into a new competition for the children. Thirty-three years later, the Discovery Competition still sends a young soloist onto the Lincoln Center stage every year.
Membership fees are deliberately kept below what the program costs to run. Donations and grants carry the difference, so that a child’s circumstances never decide whether they can play.
Scholarships
Tuition support for families who need it, and instruments for children who have none.
Tour and performance
Places on stage, including international tours, for students who could not otherwise travel.
Endowment
The Million Dollar Endowment Fund, securing accessibility for the next generation.
Give to the scholarship fund
Give monthly

Every child who plays here started somewhere.

Bring us your beginner, your pianist, your child who has never read a note. We’ll find out what they can do, and then we’ll write them a part.
Start with an audition
Come to a concert first