World-renowned conductor Marin Alsop makes her first appearance at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center as Music Director of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival with works by NOI+F Composition Academy faculty member Brian Raphael Nabors as well as Rimsky-Korsakov’s adventurous epic Scheherazade. Brian Raphael Nabor's Pulse is a contemplation of our world’s natural rhythms. The episodic rhapsody explores life’s colorful rhythmic variants held together by an underlying unified pulse.

NOI+F’s first cohort of Conducting Fellows takes the lead on the podium in this performance of works written by our inaugural Composition Fellows. Hosted by Music Director Marin Alsop, in this event you will hear two different interpretations of each piece–each showcasing a different Conducting Fellow. You will also hear from each Composition Fellow about their work. Be sure to also join us at the end of our performance for a dynamic conversation moderated by Marin and guest composer Mason Bates.

James Ross leads the NOI Philharmonic in jovial works that visit the varied roots of each composer.. Quinn Mason's festive Toast of the Town is written in the style of a lighthearted operetta and is tuneful and charming in its writing. György Ligeti's Romanian Concerto is inspired by folk music echoing from his childhood in the central Romanian region of Transylvania.

Quickly establishing herself as one of today’s leading conductors, Ruth Reindhart is highly acclaimed for her imaginative and elegant performances. In her NOI+F debut, she leads the NOI Philharmonic in a tour de force program anchored by Dvořák’s monumental New World Symphony. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is among the leading British composers in music history. His Ballade in A minor was commissioned by the Three Choirs Festival in Britain and launched the composer to prominence with its spirited warmth and passion.

Dynamic American conductor and frequent NOI+F guest Andrew Grams reunites with the NOI Philharmonic for a program that contemplates various aspects of the human experience–struggle and suffering, innocence and victory. Written to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the British abolotion of slavery, Mighty River by Belize-born Britisih composer Errollyn Wallen explores the devastating history of slavery. Gospel and spirituals are at the core of the piece, breaking barriers in contemporary classical composition.