A charismatic proponent of Latin American composers, Alondra da la Parra first emerged in New York’s classical music scene in the early 2000s, when women were rarely found on the conductor’s podium. Born in New York City in 1980, she was raised in Mexico City, where she studied piano, cello and composition. This led to a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music, where she went on to earn a master's degree in orchestral conducting. In 2003, at age 23, she formed a freelance orchestra that would become the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (POA). The New York-based ensemble toured Mexico and released Mi Alma Mexicana (My Mexican Soul) (2010), a collection of popular and lesser-known works by Revueltas, Ponce, Márquez and others. After the POA disbanded in 2011, de la Parra’s career shifted abroad, and from 2017-19 she was chief conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Australia. The 2020s brought a return to Europe, and in 2022 she was named principal guest conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano.