In August 2007, Hilda Ochoa-Brillembourg, Chairman of Youth Orchestra of the Americas, received a beautiful letter from YOA musician Isaac Casal inviting a YOA ensemble to participate as “orchestra-in-residence” at the second installment of the Alfredo de Saint-Malo Festival of Panamá. As Founder and Artistic Director of the ASM Festival, Isaac Casal was inspired by his experiences with YOA to return to his country and start the first festival dedicated to the promotion of classical music education and performance as well as create opportunities for young musicians that are otherwise quite limited in Panamá. The ASM Festival is a week-long celebration of daily concerts and recitals by local and international guest artists who also participate in master classes, lectures, workshops, private lessons and didactic concerts to benefit young Panamanian musicians and local school children and families. YOA Principal Conductor, Carlos Miguel Prieto, readily agreed to lead an ensemble of 35 YOA musicians and, in a spirit of unity and mentorship, 21 members of Orquesta Juvenil Istmeña de Panamá were selected to join the YOA musicians in a combined orchestra. By October, Paquito D’Rivera & Quintet and soprano Brenda Feliciano had signed on as special ASM Festival guest artists. Working closely with Paquito D’Rivera and Isaac Casal, Maestro Prieto created music programs for two concerts with YOA & Paquito D’Rivera, and one standard classical program for a YOA solo-concert, all led by Carlos Miguel Prieto...

In early July 2007, at a YOA rehearsal for the White House Conference on
the Americas, Adriana Mejía, Colombia’s Viceministra of Ministerio de
Relaciones Exteriores, extended the wonderful invitation to YOA to
perform on June 1, 2008 at the opening ceremony of the OAS Annual
General Assembly to be hosted by the Colombian government in Medellín.
 
With eager encouragement from Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero,
YOA was very pleased to invite rising young French-Canadian conductor,
Jean-Pascal Hamelin, to lead the ensemble of 40 YOA musicians and, in a
spirit of unity and friendship, 40 members of Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional
de Colombia in a combined orchestra...

APRIL 2007: H. E. The Ambassador of Spain, Carlos Westendorp y Cabeza, and his wife Amaya de Miguel hosted cocktails and a private performance by Venezuelan pianist, Gabriela Montero - recently featured on CBS’s “60 Minutes” as a “piano virtuoso” with an “amazing gift” - followed by a seated dinner for 50 special guests at their residence in Washington, DC.  Guests were invited to make a charitable contribution to YOA for this memorable evening…

JULY 2007: ON July 5th, 8 YOA musicians arrived at The River Inn in the heart of Washington, D.C. for a 5-day residency of rehearsals and cultural excursions, culminating in two short performances at a White House Conference on the Americas on July 9. The musicians hailed from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the United States and Uruguay…

On April 5, 12 YOA musicians from Canada, Chile, Panamá and the United States arrived at Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Farms in the Virginia
countryside to rehearse and perform a new production of Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia. This program
formally launched the first Castleton Residency for Young Artists, an annual program created by Dietlinde and Maestro Maazel and The
Châteauville Foundation…

The 5th annual YOA Summer Tour brought the orchestra for the first time to Europe.  On July 10, 2006, 110 young musicians from 20 countries of the Western Hemisphere arrived in Brussels, Belgium for a 10-day residency at Flagey Cultural Center followed by a three-week orchestral tour of Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, and England. The orchestra rehearsed a large, demanding and wide range of repertoire under guest conductors, David Robert Coleman, Plácido Domingo, and Benjamin Zander…

On August 23, a hand picked chamber orchestra of 40 musicians from nine countries of the Western Hemisphere arrived in São Paulo, Brazil for a 3-day residency of intense rehearsals of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion with world famous conductor, Kent Nagano…