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 three-week training residency at Purchase College, SUNY, with faculty made up of principal players from top professional US orchestras, these remarkable teenagers embark on a tour to some of the great music capitals of the world, serving as America's dynamic music ambassadors.

Launched in summer 2013 to great acclaim, the first-ever NYO-USA presented concerts with conductor Valery Gergiev and violinist Joshua Bell to enthusiastic audiences at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russia; and in a live televised performance at the BBC Proms in London. The 2014 orchestra-led by American conductor David Robertson with violinist Gil Shaham as soloist-made its debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City, followed by a coast-to-coast US tour, from Tanglewood in Massachusetts to Chicago's Millennium Park, ending at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. In 2015, NYO-USA traveled to China, performing at seven of the country's greatest concert halls with conductor Charles Dutoit and pianist YUNDI, including the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Most recently, in summer 2016, the orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall with conductor Christoph Eschenbach and pianist Emanuel Ax before embarking on a European tour with conductor Valery Gergiev and pianist Denis Matsuev with stops in Amsterdam, Montpelier, Copenhagen, and Prague.

NYO-USA embarks on its first-ever tour to Latin America this summer with conductor Marin Alsop. The orchestra performs at venues in Guadalajara, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Bogotá, Colombia, as well as in side-by-side performances with local young musicians. In 2018, NYO-USA returns to Asia for a tour with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. 

Music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) since 2007, Marin Alsop has had an outstandingly successful tenure marked by two extensions, now confirmed until 2021. As part of her artistic leadership, Ms. Alsop has created bold initiatives that have contributed to the wider Baltimore community and reached new audiences. In 2008, she launched OrchKids, which provides music education, instruments, meals, and mentorship to the city's neediest young people. Engaging the local community, the BSO Academy and Rusty Musicians programs allow adult amateur musicians the chance to play alongside members of the orchestra under her baton.

Ms. Alsop took up the post of principal conductor of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo in 2012 and became music director the following year, with her contract now extended through 2019. She continues to steer the orchestra in its artistic and creative programming, recording ventures, and education and outreach activities, as well as its annual Campos do Jordão International Winter Festival. Ms. Alsop led the orchestra on European tours in 2012 and 2013, with acclaimed performances at the BBC Proms in London, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, and additional appearances in Berlin, London, Paris, Salzburg, and Vienna. In 2016, the orchestra returned to Europe for concerts at the BBC Proms, and the Edinburgh International and Lucerne festivals.

Ms. Alsop has guest conducted the world's major orchestras, including close relationships with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She is also an artist-in-residence at the Southbank Centre in London.

In March 2016, Ms. Alsop celebrated Carnegie Hall's 125th anniversary by conducting its production of West Side Story at the Knockdown Center, a restored factory in Queens. During the 2016-2017 season, she returned to London for performances with the BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, and brought the Britten-Pears Orchestra to the Southbank Centre before returning to a residency at Aldeburgh's Snape Maltings.

Ms. Alsop is the recipient of numerous awards and is the only conductor to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. She was the only classical musician to be included in The Guardian's list of the top 100 women in celebration of the centenary of International Women's Day in 2011. Ms. Alsop is an honorary member of London's Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Philharmonic Society, and was recently appointed director of the graduate conducting program at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. In September 2013, she made history as the first female conductor of the BBC's Last Night of the Proms in London, which she returned to conduct in 2015.

Born in New York City, Ms. Alsop attended Yale University and received her master's degree from The Juilliard School. Her conducting career was launched in 1989 when she became a prizewinner at the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition; that same year, she became the first woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was a pupil of Leonard Bernstein.