Students Gather for World Orchestra Week

Wolrd Orchestra Week — Gustavo Dudamel poses with students at World Orchestra Week (Photo: Video still captured from World Orchestra Week/Facebook)

The week of August 6th, students from across the world gathered at Carnegie Hall for World Orchestra Week. The festival featured more than 700 students from 38 countries.

Driving the news: Earlier this month, New York City’s Carnegie Hall hosted its first ever World Orchestra Week. Hundreds of students from countries including Afghanistan, China, Israel, Nigeria, Palestine, Ukraine, and Venezuela gathered to collaborate and perform at Carnegie Hall.

Each night, a different orchestra took centre stage at Carnegie. Top conductors graced the podium, including celebrity Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel who conducted the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela as well as a mass “play-in” featuring all 700 young musicians.

Digging deeper: Many of the students who converged in New York were given a respite from their lives in war-torn countries in the Global South. The young musicians expressed in messages and interviews the difficulties of living in undemocratic countries lacking opportunities for female and female-identifying people as well as people of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

If you missed these young starlets’ New York minute, broadcasts of the performances can still be heard on WQXR

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Sara Schabas

Sara Schabas is a Dora-nominated soprano, writer and yoga teacher. She has performed and created leading roles with companies including Vancouver Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, the Dayton Opera, and Aspen Opera, and is a former member of Barbara Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists. Currently based in Montreal, she is a doctoral student at McGill University — where she recently received the Wirth Vocal Prize — and editor of Art Song Canada magazine.