This year marks the ninth year of the collaboration between Askonas Holt and Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestras. This summer sees tours with the NYO-USA, as well as with NYO Jazz, and NYO2, a programme for younger musicians with a focus on recruiting members from backgrounds currently underrepresented in Classical music.

In this, their tenth anniversary year, the NYO-USA embarks on an eight-date tour across the USA, kicking off this evening in Massachusetts at Groton Hill Music Center. They follow this tomorrow with a performance at Carnegie Hall before heading across the border to Montréal for the Festival de Lanaudière on the weekend. The tour also includes performances in Nashville, Dallas, and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming before finishing in California with appearances at Stanford and in San Diego. With conductor Sir Andrew Davis and soloists Gil Shaham and Hilary Hahn, the orchestra will perform Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique alongside a new work by Valerie Coleman and violin concerti by Tchaikovsky and Barber.

The first international tour for NYO2 takes them south next week for two performances in the Dominican Republic. In addition to concerts at Teatro Nacional Eduardo Brito in Santo Domingo and at the Gran Teatro del Cibao in Santiago, the ensemble will give relaxed evening performances for local residents at Club Hemingway in Juan Dolio. They are joined by conductor Joseph Young and violinist Jennifer Koh for a programme that includes Bernstein’s On the Town, Sibelius’s Violin Concerto and Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo & Juliet. For the concert in Santo Domingo, the orchestra teams up with local children from the National Conservatory of Music and the Festiband Orchestra.

Formed in 2018, NYO-Jazz has been touring with Askonas Holt since their inception. This summer, the ensemble heads across the pond for performances at Europe’s major summer festivals including debuts at the BBC Proms, Lucerne Festival, Festival da Jazz St Moritz and Rheingau Musikfest, as well as returns to Konzerthaus Berlin and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Led by Artistic Director Sean Jones, NYO Jazz is joined by Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Dee Dee Bridgewater for a collection of jazz standards.