NOI Philharmonic to Make Carnegie Hall Debut

When Carnegie Hall invited groundbreaking conductor Marin Alsop to curate a series of performances at the iconic New York venue as a Perspectives Artist for the 2025-26 season, she pointed her baton at College Park.

Alsop, music director of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival (NOI+F) at the University of Maryland since 2020, will lead its 90 fellows—some of the most promising young adult musicians in America—in the orchestra's Carnegie Hall debut on June 17.

The performance of four works tied to different aspects of the American experience will not just be a highlight of the month-long intensive experience. It will be a milestone for NOI+F. 

“It signifies that we’re on the national stage and really living up to the name and the idea behind what this festival was founded to be,” said Richard Scerbo ’02, M.M. ’04, director of NOI+F. “What better place to showcase that than on our country’s most prominent concert hall stage?”

Founded in 1988, NOI+F, a program of Clarice Presents, brings together aspiring orchestral musicians ages 18 and older from across the United States for rehearsals, performances and professional development. The program has built a national reputation for artistic excellence, including a Grammy-nominated recording released through its partnership with Naxos Records in 2018.

The Carnegie Hall invitation grew out of NOI+F’s ongoing artistic partnership with Alsop, the first woman to serve as the head of major orchestras in the United States, South America, Austria and Great Britain, and the first and only conductor ever to receive a MacArthur “Genius Grant.” Alsop first saw Leonard Bernstein conduct at Carnegie when she was 9 years old, which she has cited as her inspiration to become a conductor. He later became her principal mentor. 

“I remember as a young violinist playing in Carnegie Hall in an orchestra for the first time and it really made a huge impression,” Alsop said. “So when Carnegie Hall said I could bring any orchestra I want this year, I thought, ‘What an incredible opportunity for these young musicians to experience that same thrill that I had as a young musician.’”

The concert is part of Alsop’s Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, which invites leading artists across disciplines to curate performances reflecting their musical interests and introduce audiences to artists and ensembles they believe deserve the spotlight.

The evening will include selections from Bernstein’s “West Side Story” and “On the Town,” alongside Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’s lively, percussive “Antrópolis” and Kevin Puts’ concerto “Contact,” a work that highlights the need for human connection. The orchestra will be joined on “Contact” by the string trio Time for Three, whose double bass player Ranaan Meyer participated in NOI+F in 1999 and 2000. 

NOI+F participant Eleanor Sturm M.M. ’25, a violinist, called the opportunity to play at Carnegie Hall a “true privilege.”

“Thinking of the history, everything that’s been performed there, the people who’ve gone through there,” she said, “I’m really excited.”

The Carnegie Hall performance comes after weeks spent rehearsing, performing and learning alongside distinguished artists. Manuel Alejandro Ordoñez Sierra, a third-year doctoral student in violin performance at UMD, said working with Alsop is “amazing.”

“She doesn’t really need to say much to have you understand how deeply she understands the music,” he said. “That’s something really impressive and a great experience.”

The June 17 concert will also mark Ordoñez Sierra’s first performance at Carnegie Hall. Growing up in Cali, Colombia, he knew of the venue long before he arrived in the United States to pursue his musical studies.

“I know it as a place where great musicians have performed,” he said. “I’m excited to see it for the first time and play a nice concert.”

Following its Carnegie Hall debut, the NOI Philharmonic will return to Maryland to perform with Alsop and The Clarice on June 20 before a performance at the Washington National Cathedral on June 21. View the full NOI+F season.