Seeks to engage, challenge and inspire emerging jazz players, composers and conductors. Celebrated 40 years in 2023! #WAYJO #WAYJO40 Seeks to engage and inspire emerging jazz players, composers and conductors. Since 1983, the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) has offered outstanding opportunities to young musicians. From our humble beginnings, the company is now a mainstay of the Western Australian cultural landscape. Our membership comprises 54 musicians, aged 14 to 25, who perform in three 18piece jazz big bands. The company is unique in Australia, offering the only large scale annually curated bigband jazz season of increasing quality and excellence. Our annual program consists of a variety of curated streams, including ticketed performances featuring local, national and internationally reputable guest artists, a balance of historic and new music programs, free community events, private and commercial hires, a pathways program, regional tours, international exchanges, recordings and commissioning. WAYJO s artistic staff are recognised across Australia and internationally for their talent and dedication and are a major drawcard to young musicians auditioning to join the company. The administrative team is lean and tremendously dedicated and delivers a season of events and performances of comparable volume and quality to major performing arts companies. WAYJO s recent history is one of groundbreaking success. New programming initiatives, aggressive marketing campaigns, and increased wordof mouth have resulted in higher attendance at performances rising from 8,000 patrons in 2018 to over 12,000 in 2021. WAYJO s annual reach through our programs is now in excess of 30,000 people. In 2021 WAYJO presented 38 performances across 24 venues, visited 14 schools and ran 82 workshops across 5 programs. That s an incredible amount of output for such a small administrative team. WAYJO have a new vision for the future. Increased investment in the human resources of the company will allow WAYJO to develop new income streams designed to strengthen the organisation s financial viability. WAYJO has conceived an artistic plan with the aim of taking a prominent place on the national stage as one of Australia s core arts companies. WAYJO will work with more artists and arts workers for deeper engagement with WAYJO members, reach underserved audiences, continue to improve gender and cultural diversity inclusiveness in the sector, inspire young musicians across the state and country, and will continue the development of digital jazz resources enshrining the legacy of Australian bigband jazz. WAYJO s business and artistic teams have built the company into a position where the entire organisation is now ready to take another large step forward. The company is primed to take advantage of the opportunities it has cultivated over recent years, committing to the future of jazz as the lead organisation in our field in Australia.