On Thursday, 14 July, rehearsals have started for 30 young musicians from Albania, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. They have gathered in Pristina for eight intensive days of preparation under the baton of conductor and pianist Desar Sulejmani, after which they will go on a Balkans concert tour, followed one month later by a concert tour in Germany.

The inaugural concert of the Western Balkan Youth Orchestra will take place in Pristina on Thursday, 21 July at the Bogdani Polis hall. The concert will start at 20:30, and on the menu are works by Chopin, Grieg, Tansman, Shostakovich, as well as a world premiere by Albanian composer Gerti Druga.

The Western Balkans Youth Orchestra (www.wbyo.org) is an initiative of Artium Eudora, a Pristina-based NGO that is promoting the arts as a tool for individual and social progress. The orchestra went on tour for the first time in October 2021, and in May 2022 it played at the occasion of the Europe Day in Novi Sad.

After the Pristina concert, the orchestra will continue its tour in Skopje, (22 July), Novi Sad (24 July), Mostar (26 July) and Kotor (28 July). In August, the young musicians will perform for the German audience with concerts in Berlin, Kassel, Königswinter, Aachen and Essen.

The 2022 WBYO tour has been made possible with the support of the EU Directorate-General for Enlargement and Neighbourhood, EU in Kosovo and North Macedonia, several Rotary Clubs of the Aachen region, the Engagement Global, the Foreign Ministries of Germany and Luxembourg, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Kosovo, as well as the Austrian Cultural Forum in Serbia.