Known for his charisma and expressive interpretations, Mexican conductor and GRAMMY-winner Carlos Miguel Prieto has established himself not just as a major figure in the orchestra world but also as an influential cultural leader, an educator, and a champion of new music.

In a significant career development, he started his tenure as music director of the North Carolina Symphony at the beginning of the 2023–24 season. From 2007 to 2022, Prieto was the music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, the country’s leading ensemble, and significantly raised the caliber of the orchestra. He was also music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra from 2006 to 2023, where he helped lead the cultural renewal of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

In 2008, he was appointed music director of Sinfónica de Minería, which he led to a Latin GRAMMY-nomination for Best Classical Music Album. In 2023, Prieto led Minería in a highly successful tour of the United States, and in 2024 they return to perform in residence at Bravo! Vail Music Festival.

Recent highlights include engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Spanish National Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Strasbourg Philharmonic, and Auckland Philharmonia.

Prieto is in demand as a guest conductor with many of the top North American orchestras, including Cleveland, Dallas, Toronto, Minnesota, Washington, New World, and Houston. He has enjoyed a particularly successful relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony.

In 2023, Prieto made his hugely successful BBC Proms debut at Royal Albert Hall. Since 2002, alongside Gustavo Dudamel, Prieto has conducted the Orchestra of the Americas, which draws young musicians from the entire American continent. A staunch proponent of music education, Prieto served as Principal Conductor of the YOA from its inception until 2011 when he was appointed music director. In 2018 he conducted the orchestra on a tour of European summer festivals, which included performances at the Rheingau and Edinburgh festivals as well as Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. He has also worked regularly with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the NYO2 in New York.

Prieto is renowned for championing Latin American music as well as his dedication to new music. He has conducted over 100 world premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, many of which were commissioned by him. Prieto places equal importance on championing works by Black and African American composers such as Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and Courtney Bryan, among others.

Prieto has an extensive discography that includes Deutsche Gramophone, Naxos, and Sony labels. Prieto was recognized by Musical America as the 2019 Conductor of the Year. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, Prieto studied conducting with Jorge Mester, Enrique Diemecke, Charles Bruck, and Michael Jinbo.

GRAMMY Award-winning violinist Charles Yang is the recipient of the 2018 Leonard Bernstein Award and has been described by the Boston Globe as a musician who “plays classical violin with the charisma of a rock star.” He has appeared at the festivals of Schleswig-Holstein, Aspen, Ravinia, Caramoor, and Interlochen and performed at Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Royal Danish Theatre, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Beijing’s Forbidden City, YouTube Music Awards, Google Zeitgeist, and Joe’s Pub in New York.

A compelling vocalist, crossover artist, and improviser, he is a member of Time for Three, an eclectic, freewheeling string trio that locates itself at the busy intersection of Americana, modern pop, and classical music. In 2023, the group received a GRAMMY Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo for its recording of Letters for the Future, featuring the music of Kevin Puts and Jennifer Higdon with The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Xian Zhang.

Yang—an adventurous composer, arranger, songwriter, and collaborator—co-wrote the original score to Land, a 2021 film directed by Robin Wright. He has also collaborated onstage with artists such as Steve Miller, Savion Glover, Jon Batiste, Gaby Moreno, Joshua Bell, Michael Thurber, Peter Dugan, and Misty Copeland. In 2019, he premiered Kris Bowers’s concerto For a Younger Self at Walt Disney Hall.

A Juilliard graduate, he began his violin studies with his mother, Sha Zhu, in Austin, Texas, before working with Kurt Sassmanshaus, Paul Kantor, Brian Lewis, and Glenn Dicterow.

Charles performs on the 1852 “ex-Soil” J.B. Vuillaume.