Fargo Moorhead Area Youth Symphonies

What it reported doing in 2024

Fmays provides a rigorous orchestral experience through auditions, rehearsals, sectionals with professional musicians, concerts, and a concerto competition. In the spring and fall we hold auditions for each ensemble. Our music directors and other professional musicians judge the auditions and provide written comments to help students improve their musical skills in the future. Students participate in weekly rehearsals from mid-september to mid-april. In addition to full ensemble rehearsals, local professional musicians come in to lead sectionals. Sectionals break down the ensemble into smaller groups by instrument and allow a specialist to help with instrument-specific challenges. Depending on the ensemble, students perform in three to five concerts during the season. Fmays consists of three orchestras: the concert strings, the attacca strings, and the symphony orchestra. The concert strings are a string orchestra for sixth through eighth grade students. The attacca strings is an all-string orchestra for students in grades nine through twelve. Attacca strings bridges the gap between string players who are not quite ready for the repertoire of the symphony orchestra, yet still desire a challenging strings-only option. In this capacity, students are given a more exposed role where every performer's musical voice can be heard. The symphony orchestra consists of winds, brass, percussion, and strings. The string players are in grades nine through twelve, and the wind, brass, and percussion students are in grades eight through twelve. This is our top ensemble that most closely resembles the professional orchestral experience. We also have a chamber music program called encore chamber, which consists of students from the symphony orchestra. Groups of two to five students perform in these chamber ensembles throughout the year and are coached by local professional musicians. Fmays performs outreach concerts in valley city, where there is no youth orchestra, and at local nursing homes. The symphony orchestra participates in an annual side-by-side rehearsal with the fargo-moorhead symphony orchestra, culminating in a performance as a part of fmso's masterworks series. Often cited as students' most memorable experience in fmays, the side-by-side gives students a closer look into the professional music world, as they get to learn from and play alongside professional musicians. Fmays has an annual founders' concerto competition. A concerto is an instrumental solo that has orchestral accompaniment and is generally very difficult to perform. The winner of the competition gets to perform as a soloist with the symphony orchestra. This allows the winner to showcase their talent and skills on challenging music written as a solo for their instrument.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 88.6%; rating input score 89
• Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 15.2%; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.05; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 49; 49th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 25.5%; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 4.6% per year; rating input score 100; 46th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 1.9% per year; rating input score 100; 31st percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 12.1% per year; rating input score 100; 67th percentile among comparable filings