Over 700 young musicians come together in Carnegie's new summer concert festival, World Orchestra Week! Over seven consecutive nights, seven ensembles from all over the world celebrate "the voices of young people, showing how music can bring us together, connecting across different nations, cultures, and languages."
WOW! builds on Carnegie's Weill Music Institute, which has created the youth ensembles, the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA) and NYO2, conducted by Marin Alsop and Teddy Abrams, respectively. For the upcoming festival, both will perform with five other ensembles from five different continents: the National Children's Symphony of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel, the Africa United Youth Orchestra (AUYO)--making its North American debut-under William Eddins, the Beijing Youth Symphony Orchestra under Lü Jia, the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO)-including four guest musicians from the Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine--under Ivan Fischer, and the Afghan Youth Orchestra under Tiago Moreira da Silva.
Also joining are eight members of Nazareth-based educational program, Polyphony, which brings together Arab and Jewish musicians.
WOW! will feature soloists Wu Man in Zhao Jiping's Pipa Concerto No. 2, Jean-Yves Thibaudet in George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Isata Kanneh-Mason in Erno Dohnanyi's Variations on a Nursery Tune, and soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha in the dramatic works uShaka KaSenzagakhona and Princess Magogo.
Besides familiar concert staples, such as Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and the Symphonic Dances from Gershwin's West Side Story, the festival will feature Afghan folk music performed by the Afghan Youth Orchestra, and groundbreaking works by South African composers Michael Mosoeu Moerane, Mzilikazi Khumalo, and Bongani Ndodana-Breen. The NYO2 will give the world premiere of KINSFOLKNEM, a wind concertante work co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall from Jasmine Barnes.
Carnegie's World Orchestra Week! runs from August 1 to August 7. The full program lineup is available on the Carnegie Hall website.
