Carnegie Hall

Each summer, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute brings together the finest young musicians from across the country (ages 16–19) to form the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA). Following a comprehensive audition process and a two-week training residency at Purchase College, State University of New York (SUNY), with faculty made up of principal players from top professional US orchestras, these remarkable teenagers perform at Carnegie Hall and embark on a tour to some of the great music capitals of the world, serving as dynamic music ambassadors for their country. As part of their travel schedule,
NYO-USA musicians also meet and collaborate with local young musicians and experience the richness of other cultures. 

Launched in the summer of 2013, NYO-USA performances have been praised for “exuding vitality and confidence” (The New York Times). Following annual concerts at Carnegie Hall, NYO-USA has toured in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and across the United States. The orchestra has been invited to perform at leading international festivals and on landmark stages around the world, including the BBC Proms in London; National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing; Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; Lotte Hall in Seoul; Sucre National Theater in Quito; and the Tanglewood festival, among many others. Most recently, in the summer of 2021, the orchestra gathered in person at SUNY Purchase, marking the first time that most of the young musicians had been able to play in full ensembles since the start of the pandemic. In the nine years since the ensemble’s creation, NYO-USA has worked with incredible conductors and guest artists, including Sir Antonio Pappano, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Christoph Eschenbach, David Robertson, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Joshua Bell, Joyce DiDonato, Marin Alsop, and Michael Tilson Thomas. 

In 2022, the orchestra tours Europe with conductor Daniel Harding and guest cellist Alisa Weilerstein, performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Elgar’s Cello Concerto at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (August 2); Young Euro Classic festival in Berlin (August 5); Ravello Festival (August 8); and Lucerne Festival (August 10), where it makes its debut.

NYO-USA is one of Carnegie Hall’s three acclaimed national youth orchestras, along with NYO2 for outstanding classical musicians ages 14–17 and NYO Jazz for the nation’s finest jazz instrumentalists ages 16–19.

To learn more about NYO-USA, visit carnegiehall.org/NYOUSA.

Born in Oxford, Daniel Harding began his career assisting Sir Simon Rattle at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with which he made his professional debut in 1994. He went on to assist Claudio Abbado at the Berliner Philharmoniker, making his debut with the orchestra at the 1996 Berlin Festival. 

Mr. Harding is Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris from 2016 to 2019, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2017. He also holds the lifetime title of Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In 2018, Mr. Harding was named Artistic Director of the Anima Mundi festival. In 2020, he was named Conductor-in-Residence of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande for the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 seasons. 

Mr. Harding is a regular visitor to the Wiener Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, and Filarmonica della Scala. In 2011, he conducted Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci at La Scala, for which he was awarded the prestigious Franco Abbiati Prize. Closely associated with the Aix-en-Provence Festival, he has conducted new productions of Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, The Turn of the Screw,
La Traviata, Eugene Onegin, and Le nozze di Figaro. 

Mr. Harding has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Virgin/EMI, and Harmonia Mundi. His recording of Billy Budd with the London Symphony Orchestra won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. The Turn of the Screw with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra won the 2002 Choc de l’année, Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, and a Gramophone Award. 

In 2002, Mr. Harding was awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, and in 2017 was nominated Officier Arts et Lettres. In 2012, he was elected a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He is a qualified airline pilot.

Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Known for her consummate artistry, emotional investment, and rare interpretive depth, she was recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship in 2011. Today, her career is truly global in scope, taking her to the most prestigious international venues for solo recitals, chamber concerts, and concerto collaborations with preeminent conductors and orchestras worldwide. The New York Times called her “a throwback to an earlier age of classical performers: Not content merely to serve as a vessel for the composer’s wishes, she inhabits a piece fully and turns it to her own ends.” “Weilerstein’s cello is her id. She doesn’t give the impression that making music involves will at all. She and the cello seem simply to be one and the same,” agrees the Los Angeles Times. As The Telegraph put it, “Weilerstein is truly a phenomenon.”

Ms. Weilerstein recently premiered Joan Tower’s new cello concerto, A New Day, at the Colorado Music Festival. The work was co-commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; The Cleveland Orchestra, with which she performed it last fall; and the National Symphony Orchestra, where she reprised it in May 2022. An ardent champion of contemporary music, she has also premiered and supported important new works by composers who include Pascal Dusapin, Osvaldo Golijov, and Matthias Pintscher. 

An authority on J. S. Bach’s music for unaccompanied cello, in spring 2020, Ms. Weilerstein released a best-selling recording of his solo suites on the Pentatone label; streamed them in her innovative #36DaysOfBach project; and deconstructed his beloved Suite No. 1 in G Major in a Vox.com video, which has been viewed more than two million times. Her discography includes chart-topping albums and the winner of BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year. Other career milestones include a performance at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama. 

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at nine years old, Ms. Weilerstein is a staunch advocate for the T1D community. She lives with her husband, Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, and their two young children.