Conductor Joseph Young Makes Carnegie Debut This Week

 

New York (July 12, 2023)—Recognized as one of the most gifted conductors of his generation, Joseph Young makes his Carnegie Hall debut this week, leading the National Youth Orchestra 2 (NYO2) in performances in New York (July 15) and on tour in the Dominican Republic (July 17–18). The engagement caps the American conductor’s 2022–2023 season and foreshadows a vibrant 2023–2024 season ahead. 

 

“Joseph Young has had quite a year … an impressive podium stand,” wrote Washington Classical Review of the maestro’s season-closing debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in June 2023. Of his February 2023 turn conducting Jeanine Tesori’s Blue with Washington National Opera, the Washington Post praised his leadership as “lively, engaged … well-balanced,” and Opera magazine wrote, “One of the new and, as it turned out, most valuable participants was in the pit — Joseph Young, a dynamic conductor.”

 

Additional 2022–2023 highlights included Young’s LA Philharmonic debut at the Hollywood Bowl and world premieres of works by Brian Ralph Nabors and Xi Wang at the Berkeley Symphony, where he serves as Music Director. His April 2023 program with the Berkeley Symphony and pianist Lara Downes was broadcast throughout California on KUSC-FM and KDFC-FM. 

 

For the Berkeley Symphony’s just-announced 2023–2024 season, Young carries the momentum forward with an ambitious and highly original season of programming that spotlights the interplay between symphonic music, jazz, and contemporary classical music. He will open the season with a program titled “American Kaleidoscope” (October 15) that pairs Rhapsody in Blue with Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody, stride pianist and composer James P. Johnson’s answer to Gershwin’s iconic masterwork; the acclaimed Marcus Roberts Trio joins for both. Additional highlights include Connesson’s A Kind of Trane, a tribute to John Coltrane featuring Young’s brother, Dr. Robert Young, on saxophone (February 25); selections from Langston Hughes’ and Laura Karpman’s Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (March 23); and Berkeley-based composer Jimmy López Bellido’s Aurora Violin Concerto with Leticia Moreno (June 2).

 

In addition to his work with Berkeley, in the 2023–2024 season, Young will maintain his position as Artistic Director of Ensembles at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Upcoming guest conducting engagements include his debuts with the New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Milwaukee symphonies. 

 

Joseph Young’s Carnegie Hall debut represents the convergence of his identities as a conductor, an influential music educator and a quietly powerful representative of diversity, equity and inclusion in classical music. He previously served as NYO2’s Resident Conductor for five years. The July 15 performance is his first leading the group in concert at Carnegie Hall’s iconic Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage.

 

 

 

July 15, 2023, at Carnegie Hall, New York

July 17, 2023, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

July 18, 2023, in Santiago, Dominican Republic

 

BERNSTEIN: Three Dance Episodes from On the Town

SIBELIUS: Violin Concerto | Jennifer Koh, violin

PROKOFIEV: Selections from Romeo and Juliet

 

 

October 15, 2023, in Berkeley, California

 

BARBER: Essay for Orchestra No. 2

JOHNSON: Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody | Marcus Roberts Trio

Peter S. SHIN: Relapse

GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue | Marcus Roberts Trio

 

 

October 19–22, 2023, in Newark and Princeton, New Jersey

 

Jessie MONTGOMERY: Snapshots (NJ Symphony co-commission)

R. SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto | Sterling Elliott, cello

ELGAR: Enigma Variations

 

 

February 25, 2024, in Berkeley, California

   

DEBUSSY: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun               

Guillaume CONNESSON: A Kind of Trane | Dr. Robert Young, saxophone

FARRENC: Symphony No. 3 in G minor

 

 

March 15–16, 2024, in Providence, Rhode Island

 

Brian Raphael NABORS: Pulse

TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1 | Tony Siqi Yun, piano

BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1

 

 

March 23, 2024, in Berkeley, CA

 

Joel PUCKETT: There Was a Child Went Forth (West Coast Premiere) | Nicholas Phan, tenor

Laura KARPMAN: Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, Part 1

MENDELSSOHN: Selections from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Laura KARPMAN: Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, Part 3

 

 

May 10–11, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

Brian Raphael NABORS: Pulse

BARBER: Violin Concerto | Alexi Kenny, violin

DVORÁK: Symphony No. 9, “New World”

 

 

June 2, 2024, in Berkeley, California

 

ELLINGTON: Solitude (arr. Morton Gould)

Jimmy LÓPEZ BELLIDO: Aurora Violin Concerto | Leticia Moreno, violin

MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Maurice Ravel)

 

 

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Website: www.josephfyoung.com

Instagram @YoungConductor

 

Michelle Pendoley // Pen Communications