Tour & Performance Fund

A child plays differently after they have played abroad.

In July 2025 the Young Symphonic Ensemble finished a three-week international tour across the Philippines and Taiwan. Before that: Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the United Nations, London, Edinburgh, and a three-city tour of China.
COS on tour · students with instrument cases, travelling
Why it isn’t a luxury

Performing is the part that changes the child.

COS has never held students back until they were ready. Every orchestra performs twice a year, the Young Symphonic Ensemble plays an annual gala at Alice Tully Hall, and the strongest players go in front of real audiences in real halls. Confidence comes from the performing, not from another year of rehearsal.
Music must be a part of every child’s experience as they are growing up. It helps them gain confidence, nurture their intelligence, and develop social skills at an early age. Music gives them a solid stepping-stone for success in life.
Michael Dadap, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor since 1984
Where they have played

Halls and countries these children have already been sent to.

Carnegie Hall
Alice Tully Hall
Lincoln Center
The United Nations
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Wave Hill
92nd Street Y
Boston
Denver
San Francisco
St. Louis
Washington, D.C.
Toronto
London
Edinburgh
Taiwan
The Philippines
China (2017)
COS made its Carnegie Hall debut in 2007 with guest artists Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson, and returned to the Stern Auditorium and Perelman Stage for the 50th Anniversary Discovery Gala on June 20, 2019, with violinist Ray Chen.
The most recent tour

Three weeks across the Philippines and Taiwan.

In July 2025 the Young Symphonic Ensemble completed a three-week international tour of the Philippines and Taiwan, strengthening cultural ties that run back through Michael Dadap’s own Philippine training and the family history that founded COS. A tour like that is paid for long before anyone boards a plane.
TOUR REPORT NEEDED
To turn the July 2025 tour into a fundraising case study, COS needs to supply how many students traveled, the cities and venues played, how many students needed travel assistance to go, and photography or footage from the tour. Without a published account, the tour can’t help pay for the next one.

The Asia tour documentary

A separate campaign funds the film crew that travels with the orchestra, so a tour leaves behind something COS can actually use afterward.
View the documentary fundraiser
Wide · the Philippines and Taiwan tour, July 2025
What a tour costs

Airfare, instruments, halls, and the students who could not otherwise go.

The Tour & Performance Fund covers travel and lodging, freight and insurance for instruments, hall and rehearsal hire, and travel scholarships. That last one matters most. The rule that governs tuition should govern the plane ticket too.
TOUR BUDGET NEEDED
This section needs real figures from COS: the total cost of the July 2025 tour, the cost per traveling student, how many travel scholarships were awarded, and the target for the next tour. With those, the page can carry a goal and a gift ladder. Without them it can only describe categories.

The next tour

Destination, dates and ensemble not yet announced.
TOUR TO BE CONFIRMED

Somebody paid for the first flight these children ever took.

Pay for the next one.