Carnegie Hall

Founded in 1977, American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by American composers. With commitment to diversity, disruption, and discovery, ACO produces concerts, middle school through college composer education programs, and composer advancement programs to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders. ACO identifies and develops talent, performs established composers, champions those who are lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting gender, racial, ethnic, geographic, stylistic, and age diversity. To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including more than 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works. Visit americancomposers.org for more information.

A conductor of vision and distinction, Marin Alsop represents a powerful and inspiring voice. Convinced that music has the power to change lives, she is internationally recognized for her innovative approach to programming and audience development, her deep commitment to education, and her advocacy for music’s importance in the world.

Ms. Alsop currently serves as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the first music director of the University of Maryland’s National Orchestral Institute + Festival (NOI+F), and the first chief conductor and curator of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, where she leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s summer residencies. She is also conductor of honor of Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), and will later this year assume the title of music director laureate and OrchKids founder of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after an outstanding 14-year tenure as its music director. As well as enjoying longstanding relationships with the London Philharmonic and London Symphony orchestras, she regularly guest conducts major international ensembles, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestre de Paris, and the Cleveland, La Scala, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Philadelphia, and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras. An ardent champion of new composition, she was music director of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for 25 years. Last year, in collaboration with YouTube, Google Arts & Culture, and a host of the world’s leading arts organizations, she spearheaded the #GlobalOdeToJoy, a crowd-sourced video project to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary and amplify his Ninth Symphony’s call for tolerance, unity, and joy.

The first and only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Ms. Alsop has also been honored with the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award and numerous honorary doctorates. Recognized with multiple Gramophone Awards, her extensive discography includes recordings for Decca, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, and Sony Classical. To promote and nurture the careers of her fellow women conductors, in 2002 she founded the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship, which was recently renamed in her honor as the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship.

Violinist Jennifer Koh is recognized for her intense, commanding performances delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance. A forward-thinking artist, she is dedicated to exploring a broad and eclectic repertoire, while promoting equity and inclusivity in classical music. She has expanded the contemporary violin repertoire through a wide range of commissioning projects, and has premiered more than 100 works written especially for her. Her quest for the new and unusual, sense of endless curiosity, and ability to lead and inspire a host of multidisciplinary collaborators, truly set her apart.

Ms. Koh’s critically acclaimed series include Alone Together, an online commissioning project and performance series in support of composers during the coronavirus crisis (released on recording in August 2021); The New American Concerto, which invites a diverse collective of composers to examine sociocultural topics relevant to American life today through the form of the violin concerto; Limitless, which explores the relationship between composer and performer through duo works played by Ms. Koh and the composers themselves; Bach and Beyond, which traces the history of the solo violin repertoire from J. S. Bach’s sonatas and partitas to pieces by 20th- and 21st-century composers; and Shared Madness, comprising short solo works that explore virtuosity in the 21st century, commissioned from more than 30 composers.

Ms. Koh performs a broad range of concertos that reflects the breadth of her musical interests from traditional to contemporary. Highlights of her orchestral appearances have included performances with the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics; the Cleveland, Minnesota, Philadelphia, and Philharmonia (London) orchestras; the Atlanta, Baltimore, BBC, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, Montreal, National, New Jersey, NHK (Tokyo), Pittsburgh, RAI National (Torino), and Singapore symphony orchestras; Houston, St. Louis, Seattle, Nashville, and New World symphonies; and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, among others.

Ms. Koh has been honored as “A Force of Nature” by the American Composers Orchestra and Musical America’s 2016 Instrumentalist of the Year. She has won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Concert Artists Guild Competition, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. She has a bachelor’s in English literature from Oberlin College and studied at the Curtis Institute, where she worked extensively with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir. Ms. Koh is an active lecturer, teacher, and recording artist for Cedille Records. She is also artistic director of arco collaborative, an artist-driven nonprofit that fosters a better understanding of our world through a musical dialogue inspired by ideas and the communities around us.