06-27-2024 Howard - Flipbook - Page 50
Conductor Marin Alsop leads players from OchKids, the music education program for disadvantaged
Baltimore children that she founded, in Baltimore. This summer is Alsop’s second appearance with the
national youth orchestra, which she previously led in 2017. JUSTIN T. GELLERSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
the famed French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Then, she will join other members of the youth
orchestra traveling to Brazil, Uruguay and
Argentina, and meet with Gustavo Dudamel,
who will become music director of the New
York Philharmonic in 2026.
And after that, she will begin college as a
freshman at the University of Maryland.
That lineup would be enough to make
anyone’s head spin. But for Cai, her violin has
always been a stabilizing force.
“Music’s always been a huge part of my
life,” Cai said. “When I’m trying to tell a story
through music, I get into a kind of flow state.
I try to really feel it and to bring my emotions
out.”
The National Youth Orchestra was created
in 2013, the brainchild of Clive Gillinson,
Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director,
who wondered why the U.S. didn’t have a youth
orchestra similar to the one he had been part
of in his native Great Britain.
Each summer, Carnegie Hall trains and tours
three ensembles for students ages 16 to 19:
the main classical orchestra in which Cai will
participate, a junior orchestra for students ages
14 to 17 known as “NYO2” and a jazz ensemble.
Douglas Beck, director of artist training
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| Summer 2024 | howardmagazine.com
programs for the organization, said about 200
teens were selected for the three ensembles this
summer, or about one-fifth of the roughly 1,000
young performers who auditioned.
In addition to Cai, other Maryland teens
participating in the main youth orchestra
include violinist Anna Hilderbrand from Mount
Savage, oboist Kyle Cho from Potomac, and
violists Katherine Eunbee Song from Potomac
and Katie Hwang from Rockville.
The young musicians will have an
opportunity to interact with their South
American counterparts while on tour. After
they return to the U.S., they will meet teen
musicians from around the world during the
first week of August as part of the new World
Orchestra Week, which will bring five youth
orchestras to New York from Africa, Asia,
Europe, and Latin America.
Beck said he can’t wait.
“What happens over three or four days with
young people can be transformative,” he said.
“These are orchestras that will play their
hearts out with joy and energy and who are
so responsive to feedback. They soak up
everything that their teachers and conductors
have to offer.”
In a way, Cai has been preparing for this
summer for her entire life.
She comes from a musical family; her
mother and grandmother teach piano, her
older sister, Gloria, plays the cello, and her
twin sister, Sophia, is a pianist who served as the
accompanist for Olivia’s Carnegie Hall audition.
Like her twin, Cai started out on the piano
at age 4. But when she was in the third grade,
she switched to violin, began studying with
Mutchnik and never looked back.
“The violin is so expressive and beautiful and
you can do so much with it,” she said.
Cai participated last summer in NYO2,
where she formed friendships with other gifted
and passionate young musicians. But she said
the part of the summer she’s looking forward
