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Eighty-eight mostly teenage musicians of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, along with chaperones and others, depart on Wednesday for the orchestra's first European tour since 1987.

The week of performances will begin in Budapest, Hungary, where the first concert will be given on Saturday at the Franz Liszt Academy. Then it's on to Vienna, the Smetana Festival and Prague in the Czech Republic. The grand finale will be performed at the famous Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, on June 25. The final concert will be recorded, at least for archival purposes, but possibly to assist in fundraising as well.

"We get the cream of the crop -- the incredible talent of young instrumentalists in and around Pittsburgh -- chosen through highly competitive auditions," says music director Daniel Meyer. "We play real repertoire, not easy arrangements -- the same things the Pittsburgh Symphony plays."

Most members of the orchestra are from Western Pennsylvania, with a few from Ohio and West Virginia.

The European presenters requested that the programs include something from the standard repertoire, which prompted Meyer to pick Modest Mussorsgky's piano piece "Pictures at an Exhibition" in Maurice Ravel's transcription for virtuoso orchestra.

"It will showcase the technical and musical excellence of the whole orchestra," Meyer says.

He naturally wanted to highlight American music, too, including Pittsburgh composer David Stock's "Drive Time" and early 20th-century composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes' "Poem for Flute and Orchestra."

South Allegheny High School senior Thomas Wibel will be the featured soloist in the Griffes piece, with which he won the Youth Symphony's concerto competition this season.

"I got to play it at Heinz Hall, but when they told me I'd get to play it on tour it was overwhelming," says Wibel, an 18-year-old flutist from Port Vue. The trip will be his first to Europe.

His colleague Joseph Liu, 18, the concertmaster from Murrysville, has been to Europe before, but he's no less excited. He's been researching the tour before going, and not only on the Internet.

"Those halls in which we'll perform are gorgeous," he says. "My piano teacher Tatiana Gelman said they're acoustically wonderful, too."

Liu visited France two summers ago with other language students from Franklin Regional High School.

"It was one of the most important experiences of my life -- the culture, all the sights, the different people and language and the food," he says, sighing. "The food was absolutely fantastic. And it's a good break away from home."

The Youth Symphony's music director most often works with the professional musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He was named music director of the Asheville (N.C.) Symphony in December.

"With professionals," Meyer says, "you expect technical proficiency right away -- all the notes learned, the rhythms correct. That's why I can pull off PSO performances on half a rehearsal."

By contrast, Meyer says, "With a youth symphony your expectation is high, but not that they can start note-perfect. We talk about where in the bow the string players need to be, how wind and brass players signal one another in starting a phrase, and teach percussionists to follow the bow of the concertmaster for good ensemble."

This European trip is part of a three-year rotation of touring -- regional, national and international -- that Craig Johnson suggested during his interviews for his current position as executive director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. The proposal was based on personal experience.

"I was a young flutist, just out of college, when I went to Europe for the first time for a three-week chamber music festival in France," Johnson says. "I'll never forget it as long as I live. It's a big world out there."

The Youth Symphony tour is budgeted at $550,000, about $100,000 of which is covered by foundation grants. Each orchestra member is responsible for $2,500, and each chaperone and others traveling with the group is paying $3,500. Even so, Johnson says the Youth Symphony will dip into its cash reserves to balance the books for what everyone expects will be unforgettable experiences.

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