Giancarlo Guerrero conducts Copland, Spalding, and Stravinksy — With Esperanza Spalding

Led by award-winning maestro Giancarlo Guerrero, the young musicians of NYO2 and members of The Philadelphia Orchestra present a beautiful and wide-ranging concert program that stars both the music and the performing talents of the brilliant young Esperanza Spalding, a genre-bending composer, bassist, and vocalist who already has four Grammy Awards to her name.

Framing Spalding's music are two ballet suites by two of the most beloved composers of the 20th century: Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky. Copland's pioneering Billy the Kid tells the story of a notorious American outlaw through a distinctive musical language we now recognize as characteristically American. Stravinsky's beloved The Firebird, which closes the concert, stands as "the one great bridge between Romanticism and modernism in Russian music" (Bill Zakariasen). Its endearing freshness and vital sense of possibility beautifully compliment the spirit of the young musicians performing in Carnegie Hall this evening.

An outgrowth of the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute's National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA), NYO2 is a summer orchestral training program for young American instrumentalists that focuses on finding and nurturing talented individuals from underprivileged backgrounds.

Photo: Esperanza Spalding