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 a commitment to diversity, disruption, and discovery, ACO produces concerts, composer education programs, and composer advancement programs to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders. ACO identifies and develops talent, performs works by 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.

Now encompassing all of ACO’s composer advancement initiatives, EarShot is the first ongoing, systematic program for developing relationships between composers and orchestras on the national level. Through orchestral readings, CoLABoratory fellowships, consortium commissions, and professional development, EarShot ensures a vibrant musical future by investing in creativity today. Serving over 350 composers since inception, ACO readings in New York City began in 1991, and since 2008, national readings have been offered in partnership with orchestras across the country in collaboration with the League of American Orchestras, New Music USA, and American Composers Forum. Featured composers have gone on to win every major composition award, including the Pulitzer, Grammy, Grawemeyer, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Rome Prize.

ACO has received numerous awards for its work, including honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and BMI in recognition of the orchestra’s outstanding contribution to American music. ASCAP has awarded ACO its annual prize for adventurous programming 35 times, singling out ACO as “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States.” ACO received the inaugural MetLife Award for Excellence in Audience Engagement, and a proclamation from the New York City Council. Visit americancomposers.org for more information.

Conductor Daniela Candillari continues to garner praise for her dynamic and compelling performances at opera houses and on concert stages across North America and Europe. Recognized for her “confidence and apparently inexhaustible verve” (The New York Times), she enters her second season as both principal conductor at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and principal opera conductor at Music Academy.

In the 2022–2023 season, Candillari conducts the New York Philharmonic and Yo-Yo Ma, American Composers Orchestra and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street at Carnegie Hall, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal, Symphony Orchestra of the Slovenian National Theater in Maribor, and Toledo Symphony Orchestra. She also leads the world premiere of Peter Knell and Stephanie Fleischmann’s Arkhipov at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, Deutsche Oper Berlin’s concert version of Lakmé, New Orleans Opera’s Hansel and Gretel, Juilliard Opera’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’s Tosca, and Music Academy’s La bohème.

Last season, Candillari made her Metropolitan Opera debut conducting Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice. She also led Jeanine Tesori’s Blue at Detroit Opera; Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones at Lyric Opera of Chicago; Carmen at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; and the North American premiere of Caroline Shaw, Andrew Yee, and Asma Maroof’s Moby Dick; or, The Whale at The Shed with members of the New York Philharmonic. Other credits include Music Academy’s Eugene Onegin, the 2021 made-for-film world premiere of Clint Borzoni’s The Copper Queen with Arizona Opera, and the 2022 film of Ana Sokolović’s Svadba with Boston Lyric Opera. As a composer, Candillari has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Met Opera, and New York City Ballet orchestras.

Candillari grew up in Serbia and Slovenia. For more information, visit danielacandillari.com.