Conductor Alondra de la Parra has gained widespread attention for her spellbinding and vibrant performances, making her one of the most compelling conductors of her generation. “de la Parra’s conducting style must be seen to be believed,” raved the San Antonio News Express. “Her electric, precise and energetic fluidity generated arches of breathtaking, glowing expression. The driving Beethoven rhythms pulled the audience to its feet at the end. If people still wore hats, they would have been tossed toward the theater’s night-sky ceiling.”

In 2004 at the age of 23, Alondra de la Parra founded the New York-based Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (POA) with the mission of promoting the work of young soloists and composers of the American continent. Since its founding, POA has engaged in international tours, established an Arts and Education program, and initiated a Young Composers’ Competition. The orchestra has performed for the President of Mexico; has been hosted at the White House; has given concerts for over 30,000 audience members in New York, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Dallas, and Washington, DC, among other cities. In August 2010, POA will release Mi Alma Mexicana, its first commercial recording for Sony Classical. A celebration of Mexico’s 2010 bicentennial, Mi Alma Mexicana will include music from the past 200 years by a wide range of Mexican composers.

As Symphony magazine put it, “de la Parra doesn’t seem to put much stock in the ‘glass ceiling.’” She holds the distinction of being the first Mexican woman to conduct in New York City, and she has been honored for her contributions to the arts with a proclamation from the city of New York. For the past two years, she has received the League of American Orchestras Women Conductors’ Grant. In May 2008, de la Parra became the youngest member to join the board of trustees of the Latin Grammy Awards, and she holds the title of Cultural Ambassador for Mexican Tourism. Respected by her musician colleagues in spite of her relative youth, she has been heralded by Plácido Domingo as “an extraordinary conductor.”

A champion of new music as well as an innovative interpreter of standard repertoire, she has conducted more than twenty world premieres by composers including Enrico Chapela, Paul Brantley, Paul Desenne, Eugenio Toussaint, Ernesto Villa-Lobos, and many more, and has led acclaimed performances of works including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.

Over just the past five years de la Parra has been featured in Crain’s New York Business as one of their “40 under 40 New York’s Rising Stars,” singled out in The Daily Beast as one of the “Young Rockstars of the Conducting World,” graced the cover of Caras magazine, been the subject of a major feature in The New York Times, recognized by Poder magazine as one of their “Top 20 under 40,” and named as one of six “Young Artists on the Rise” in Symphony magazine.

Alondra de la Parra’s recent and upcoming highlights include return engagements with the San Francisco Symphony, and her subscription concert debut with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Abroad she conducts Brazil’s Sao Paulo Symphony, Canada’s Edmonton Symphony, Germany’s Kammerakademie Potsdam and Moritzburg Festival Orchestra, and Denmark’s Tivoli Symphony. In addition, since 2005 she has been Music Director of the Music Festival of the Americas in Stowe, Vermont.

Previous performances have included appearances with the symphony orchestras of Houston, Phoenix, Columbus, San Antonio, the Chicago Sinfonietta, and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de Mexico, as well as conducting concerts at the New Hampshire and Colorado Summer Music Festivals. Additional highlights have included a gala concert with the Washington National Opera and Plácido Domingo; a return performance with the Russian National Orchestra at the Festival of the Arts Boca; conducting Venezuela’s Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which gave her their highest honor bestowed to a musician; leading the Singapore Sun Festival Orchestra where she collaborated with actor Geoffrey Rush; as well as conducting to critical acclaim the Dallas Symphony, Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Miami’s New World Symphony, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Aguascalientes, and Uruguay’s Montevideo Philharmonic.

Alondra de la Parra makes her home in New York City with her husband, and holds a B.A. in piano performance and an M.M. in conducting from the Manhattan School of Music. Since 2003, her mentor and teacher has been Kenneth Kiesler, and she has participated in masterclasses with Kurt Masur. Alondra de la Parra is represented worldwide by Tanja Dorn at IMG Artists. For more information, please visit www.alondradelaparra.com.