Schools
Do you want to experience music with your class? We’ll be pleased to give school classes of different levels insights into the everyday life of the Orchestra. With our offers, we would like to
- raise awareness of classical music
- familiarise them with music and reduce any associated anxieties
- give all social classes access to music
- explain to children and young people the world of a symphony orchestra
- create unforgettable moments
We offer exciting and thrilling experiences with members of the orchestra: Visits to rehearsals and concerts, discussions with musicians at school, guided tours of the Tonhalle and various workshops.
In the 2025/26 season, we welcomed a total of around 5200 pupils to our programmes.
All offers are organised in collaboration with the City of Zurich's Department of School Culture and the Canton of Zurich's Department of Education. You can find the current programme announcements on the city intranet and on the Schule+Kultur website, where you can register your class directly.
Interested teachers from private institutions or schools outside the canton should contact Yvonne Gisler directly.
News
You can find impressions of the "Mittendrin" school project in the picture gallery below. Further news and reviews of our school projects can be found here.
Offers for primary schools
Twice a year we run the school project «Mittendrin» for primary school classes, offer rehearsal visits or a whole day behind the scenes of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich at the National Future Day. Register in good time, places are limited!
School project «Mittendrin»
Around 300 primary school children visit the Tonhalle for two days to get to know the musicians of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and perform a joint final concert. The participating pupils prepare intensively for this. They attend a conducting workshop and a singing workshop, and they familiarise themselves intensively with the various instruments and can also try them out.
The final concert takes place in the Grosse Tonhalle, is free of charge and can be attended without a ticket.
Future Day
On Future Day, children are given an insight into the working life of adults - including at the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. The Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich invites curious children from the 5th primary school onwards to get a taste of orchestral life. We show how many professions there are in and around the orchestra.
The Future Day broadens children's horizons in an exciting and enjoyable way, boosts their self-confidence and gives them courage for their own future.
For children from primary 5
Duration: 09.00 - 16.00 hrs
Work samples
We give two primary school classes an insight into a rehearsal of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich at the Tonhalle. Beforehand, an orchestra member visits your class at school.
School concerts
We also offer two selected family concerts for schools in the city and canton of Zurich.
Around 1800 schoolchildren can thus also experience our concerts specially designed for children.
School concert: The magic gate
School concert: Silberbüx - With a bang and a toot
Schulkonzert: Silberbüx – Mit Knall und Tätsch
School concert: MähTropolis - A crazy sheep story
School concert: MähTropolis - A crazy sheep story
Offers for senior classes
We will be pleased to give senior classes a look behind the scenes of the Tonhalle. Or we bring music to them at school.
Guided tour and dress rehearsal – a peek behind the scenes
Let us take you and your class through the Tonhalle and its backstage facilities. We will tell you how much and what is precisely required to guarantee the smooth running of a concert hall. You will gain insight into various fields of work and the very special world of an orchestra, in which all are responsible for ensuring that, evening after evening, music that touches people can be made.
Following the tour, you and your class will attend the first half of a dress rehearsal. Experience classical music up close with your students.
Musicians’ discussion and rehearsal or concert – experience musicians
A musician from the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich will tell your class about everyday working life in the ensemble. Why does one become a musician? How much does one have to practise? Are professional musicians nervous before concerts? There will be personal and humorous answers to these and any other questions that your students may ask.
After the discussion, you and your class will attend a rehearsal or a concert. Here, your students will experience what they have previously heard and been explained with all their senses.
Concert – Contact with classical music
Many young people may have high inhibitions about attending a classical concert. But if you enjoy a concert evening together with the whole class, this view can change. Give your pupils the chance to experience classical music live.
Upper school classes from the city or canton of Zurich can order tickets for selected concerts.
«Step in!» for secondary classes
The secondary classes are prepared in several steps for a concert visit of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich. The various events take place alternately in the classroom and in the Tonhalle.
- Class visit by a member of the orchestra in the classroom
- Tour of the Tonhalle
- Introduction to the concert programme by a musicologist
- Conducting workshop
- Concert visit
School concert
We also offer a shortened version of the semi-staged opera production "La scala die seta" for schools in the city and canton of Zurich.
School concert: La scala di seta
