Alondra de la Parra


Alondra de la Parra is a Mexican American conductor and the current Music Director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the first female principal conductor of an Australian symphony orchestra. De la Parra is also an official Cultural Ambassador of Mexico.

Personal life

De la Parra was born in New York City, the daughter of Manelick de la Parra, a writer and editor, and Graciela Borja, a sociologist and educator. Her father was a film student at New York University and her mother a sociology student at The New School at the time of her birth and early childhood, through age three. Her grandmother was the writer Yolanda Vargas Dulché, and her aunt is the actress Emoé de la Parra. Her brother is Mane de la Parra.
She is mother of two sons, Luciano and Julián

Career

The family subsequently moved to Mexico City, where de la Parra began her piano studies at age seven and the cello at age 13. She also developed an interest in conducting around age 13. After a year of study at St Leonards-Mayfield School, she studied composition at the Centre of Research and Musical Studies in Mexico City. At age 19, de la Parra returned to New York City, to study piano and conducting at the Manhattan School of Music. She obtained a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance under the direction of Jeffrey Cohen and studied conducting with Michael Charry and Kenneth Kiesler, receiving an MA in Conducting in 2008. Her other conducting mentors include Marin Alsop, Charles Dutoit, and Kurt Masur. She served as an apprentice conductor with the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra.
In 2003, de la Parra founded her own ensemble, the Mexican-American Orchestra, at the behest of the Mexican Consulate, which asked de la Parra to produce a concert featuring Mexican music for the Mexico Now Festival. The resulting 65-member orchestra was renamed in 2004 the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas. The POA toured in Mexico in 2007. The orchestra and de la Parra released two commercial recordings, Mi Alma Mexicana – My Mexican Soul, and Travieso Carmesí. In June 2011, the POA suspended operations because of financial difficulties. De la Parra was artistic director of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco from 2012 to 2013.
In May 2015, de la Parra made her first guest-conducting appearance with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. In October 2015, the QSO announced the appointment of de la Parra as its first-ever music director and first-ever female conductor in its principal conducting post for a term of three years, 2017 to 2019.

Awards