This summer, rising second-year student Megan Zhang (TC ARAD 2020), is interning at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute as the Artist Training Programs Intern and working with the three youth ensembles: National Youth Orchestra – USA, NYO2, and NYO Jazz. 

The National Youth Orchestra-USA program brings together the brightest young musicians, ages sixteen to eighteen. They come from across the country to participate in a three week residency at SUNY Purchase, with leading professional orchestra musicians. They also get to tour to some of the world’s most renowned centers for music. 

The NYO2 program has a particular focus on recruiting musicians from communities that are underrepresented in classical music. This runs alongside NYO-USA with a week long residency at SUNY Purchase as well as a residency at New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. 

The NYO Jazz program gives outstanding young jazz musicians from across the country an opportunity to perform as cultural ambassadors on an international stage, sharing a uniquely American musical genre with cultures around the world through an international tour.

As the Artist Training Programs intern, Megan has been working on several projects and events including the following: preparing excerpts for the NYO 2020 auditions, tracking student paperwork and arrivals, creating guides for the students, and assisting with the Joyce DiDonato Master Class series. Megan has also been updating data on students, alumni, faculty. She reviews the data in Tessitura so the team can generate up-to-date reports that assists with future projects.

We asked Megan to answer a couple of questions about her internship experience:

What’s your favorite part about your internship?

I love working with the Artist Training Programs team! It is a small team of only five people, but they have really made my feel like a sixth member. They also make an effort to play to my strengths when giving me projects. It is also great participating in other Weill Music Institute programs since the department’s programming is so vast and everything they do is so embedded with their values of artistry, community, and equity.

What does a typical day look like?

I start off my morning with a trip to Joe & the Juice for a coffee and then get settled at my desk checking unread emails and checking in with the Assistant Director on the day’s tasks. For the past couple of months, we’ve been preparing for over two hundred kids to arrive in New York and start the residency program so it has been a lot of tracking forms, information, and contacting students and parents. I have learned so much through this experience!

Congrats Megan on your internship!