Interlochen Arts Academy partners with Detroit Symphony Orchestra to add additional performance to March 2026 tour

The performance will mark the 100th anniversary of the collaboration between Interlochen and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, which began in 1926 with the inaugural performance of the National High School Orchestra—the precursor to Interlochen Arts Camp.

Joshua McClendon, a 2018 graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, will appear as the soloist for Wynton Marsalis’s new cello concerto in the March 10 performance at the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center in Detroit.

October 16, 2024

Interlochen Arts Academy will partner with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to add an additional performance to their recently announced March 2026 tour. The performance, which celebrates the 100-year relationship between the two organizations, will feature rising cello star Joshua McClendon—an alumnus of both Interlochen’s and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s youth arts education programs.

McClendon will serve as the guest soloist for Wynton Marsalis’s new cello concerto during the March 10, 2026 performance at the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center in Detroit. Members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra who are Interlochen alumni will perform alongside the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra under the baton of World Youth Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director and Principal Conductor and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Music Director Designate Cristian Măcelaru in a two-act orchestral performance highlighted by appearances from Interlochen dancers, actors, creative writers, filmmakers, and visual artists.

The performance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra coincides with the 100th anniversary of the orchestra’s long and storied collaboration with Interlochen Center for the Arts—as well as the 60th anniversary of the orchestra’s first performance on Interlochen’s campus. In 1926, the ensemble’s Orchestra Hall hosted the inaugural performance of the National High School Orchestra, an ensemble organized by Interlochen founder Dr. Joseph Maddy as the precursor to the National High School Orchestra Camp (now Interlochen Arts Camp). Detroit Symphony Orchestra conductor Ossip Gabrilowitsch and Maddy shared conducting responsibilities for the concert.

“The very idea of Interlochen began through a partnership with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, which generously provided the space for Joseph Maddy to unite young musicians from across the country—sparking the dream of a summer arts camp,” said Trey Devey, President of Interlochen Center for the Arts. “It is only fitting for two institutions that are so committed to youth arts education to come together to honor this occasion and to lift up a remarkable artist who Interlochen, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the city of Detroit have shaped.”

Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians and conductors have regularly served as faculty members and guest artists at Interlochen Arts Camp and Arts Academy, and the ensemble has made frequent appearances at the Camp since its inaugural performance there in 1966. Since 2019, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has conducted annual residencies at Interlochen Arts Camp that include a public performance by the DSO and master classes for Arts Camp students. The summer residency also includes a side-by-side performance featuring the World Youth Symphony Orchestra and musicians from the DSO, which for the past two summers has been conducted by Detroit Symphony Orchestra Music Director Jader Bignamini.

“The Detroit Symphony Orchestra celebrates its shared history with Interlochen as national leaders in arts education, particularly in bringing the joy of music to young people in the state of Michigan for a century,” said Erik Rönmark, President and CEO of the DSO. “We can think of no more fitting tribute to the 100th anniversary of our collaboration than this concert by the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra at Orchestra Hall in Detroit with DSO musicians who are Interlochen alumni and cellist Joshua McClendon.”

A native of Detroit, McClendon has deep ties to both Interlochen and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. McClendon joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Youth Ensembles at age 7 and began cello lessons with DSO cellist Paul Wingert—also an Interlochen Arts Camp alumnus—at age 8. He attended Interlochen Arts Camp for six summers before continuing his studies with Crispin Campbell at Interlochen Arts Academy. While at the Academy, McClendon was selected as the third-place laureate in the junior division of the 20th annual Sphinx Competition, a Detroit-based competition founded by Interlochen Arts Academy alumnus Aaron Dworkin that seeks to address systemic obstacles in classical music by celebrating the artistic talent of and providing career opportunities for Black and Latino string musicians. After graduating from Interlochen in 2018, McClendon earned a bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School under Richard Aaron. McClendon has previously appeared as a soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2018 Heroes Gala. He is currently the cellist of the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition-winning Isidore String Quartet, which in 2023 became the youngest ensemble ever to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant. McClendon’s inspiring story was chronicled in the recently published book Joshua’s Journey to Juilliard.

“I could not be more thrilled to collaborate with both the Interlochen students and Maestro Măcelaru,” McClendon says. “I actually worked with Maestro Măcelaru for the first time in Interlochen Arts Camp's World Youth Symphony Orchestra nearly ten years ago now, so it is particularly special for me to reconnect with him in this setting, back in the same place.”

McClendon is one of thousands of young artists from the Detroit metro area who have attended Interlochen Arts Camp or Arts Academy since Interlochen’s founding. In 2020, the institution formalized the Detroit Opportunity Scholars Program to enable gifted students who reside in Detroit or are affiliated with Detroit-based organizations to experience Interlochen Arts Camp’s world-class arts education—regardless of their financial situation. Since the program’s inception and with the support of dedicated philanthropy, Interlochen has awarded more than $650,000 in scholarships through the program, enabling more than 150 young artists to attend Interlochen Arts Camp. Interlochen has also fostered connections with many Detroit-based youth arts education programs, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Youth Ensembles and Detroit Harmony; the Detroit Opera Youth Chorus; and InsideOut Literary Arts, among many others.

Interlochen Arts Academy’s March 2026 tour also includes performances at Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson Hall and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in partnership with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra as part of America250, a series of celebrations honoring the American semiquincentennial. Acclaimed trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Wynton Marsalis will compose a new cello concerto for the tour, which will be performed by famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in performances at Interlochen Center for the Arts, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

The tour is one of several major initiatives leading up to Interlochen’s Centennial celebrations in 2028.

About Joshua McClendon
Born in 1999, cellist Joshua McClendon began his cello studies at the age of eight under the tutelage of cellist Paul Wingert. McClendon studied at Interlochen Arts Camp for six summers before continuing his training at Interlochen Arts Academy under Crispin Campbell. In 2018, he entered his undergraduate studies at the Juilliard School where he studied with Professors Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy. Other important mentors of his have included Joel Krosnick, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Natasha Brofsky, Astrid Schween, Miriam Fried, Jonathan Koh, Roger Tapping, and Laurie Smukler. A founding member of the Isidore String Quartet, McClendon has gained international recognition after winning the First Prize and Haydn Prize at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In Spring of 2023, the Isidore Quartet received an Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming the youngest ensemble in the program’s history to do so. Since, as a member of ISQ, he has made debuts throughout North America and Europe including chamber music societies of Seattle, San Antonio, Evanston, the Kennedy Center, and more, as well as summer music festivals such as Edinburgh International Festival, Lucerne Festival, Bravo! Vail, and Toronto Summer Music. McClendon has had the great fortune of collaborating with artists such as James Ehnes, Jeremy Denk, Shai Wosner, Efe Baltacigil, Jon Nakamatsu, Barry Shiffman, and the Adelphi and Leonkoro Quartets. McClendon performs on a Giovanni Grancino cello, Milan c. 1697 on loan from Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

About Cristian Măcelaru
GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Cristian Măcelaru is the Music Director Designate of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival and Competition, Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ World Youth Symphony Orchestra, Music Director and Conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and Chief Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, where he will serve through the 2024/25 season and continue as Artistic Partner for the 2025/26 season.

Măcelaru recently appeared at the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony which was broadcast to 1.5 billion viewers worldwide. He led theOrchestre National de France and Chœur de Radio France in the performance of the Olympic Anthem as the Olympic Flag was raised beneath the Eiffel Tower. Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France continue their 2024/25 season in tours throughout France, Germany, South Korea and China. Guest appearances include his debuts with the Oslo Philharmonic and RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Turin as well as returns with the Wiener Symphoniker, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in Europe. In North America, Măcelaru leads the Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Măcelaru’s previous seasons include European engagements with the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Concertgebouworkest, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks,Staatskapelle Berlin and Budapest Festival Orchestra. In North America, he has led the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra.

In 2020, he received a GRAMMY® Award for conducting the Decca Classics recording of Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti and The Philadelphia Orchestra. His most recent release is of Enescu Symphonies and two Romanian Rhapsodies with the Orchestre National de France, released on Deutsche Grammophon.

About Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis is a world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and a leading advocate of American culture. Marsalis was born to a musical family in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961. He began performing jazz and classical trumpet music from an early age. In 1980, upon moving to New York to attend The Juilliard School, Marsalis launched his career performing as a member of the legendary Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

In the four decades since, he has rekindled widespread international interest in jazz through performances, educational initiatives, books, curricula, and public advocacy. Between his 1982 debut and the present, Marsalis has released 129 recordings and composed hundreds of original pieces for symphony orchestra, jazz big band and small group, and a variety of chamber music configurations. He has performed in 858 cities and 65 countries across the globe to date. Marsalis is the recipient of 41 honorary degrees, countless awards, and has been appointed a UN Messenger of Peace (2001). He has been bestowed some of the world’s highest government honors for the arts: The National Medal of Arts (USA, 2005), a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (France, 2009), The National Humanities Medal (USA, 2016), and the Praemium Imperiale for Music (Japan, 2023).

Marsalis presently serves as Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Director of Jazz Studies at the Juilliard School, and President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. He continues to inspire new generations of musicians and audiences through his performances, recordings, compositions, and educational initiatives.

About the DSO
The acclaimed Detroit Symphony Orchestra is known for trailblazing performances, collaborations with the world’s foremost musical artists, and a deep connection to its city. Led by Music Director Jader Bignamini since 2020, the DSO makes its home at historic Orchestra Hall within the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, offering a performance schedule that features the PVS Classical, PNC Pops, Paradise Jazz, and Young People’s Family Concert series. In addition, the DSO presents the William Davidson Neighborhood Concert Series in metro area venues, as well as eclectic multi-genre performances in its mid-size venue The Cube, constructed and curated with support from Peter D. & Julie F. Cummings. A dedication to broadcast innovation began in 1922, when the DSO became the first orchestra in the world to present a live radio broadcast of a concert and continues today with the groundbreaking Live from Orchestra Hall series of free webcasts.

Since its first school concerts a century ago, and particularly since the founding of the Civic Youth Ensembles in 1970, the DSO has been a national leader in bringing the benefits of music education to students, teachers, and families in Detroit and surrounding communities. The DSO remains committed to expanding its participation in the growth and well-being of Detroit through programs like its Detroit Neighborhood Initiative—cultural events co-created with community partners and residents—and Detroit Harmony, a promise to provide an instrument and instruction to any student in the city who wants to learn. With unwavering support from the people of Detroit, the DSO actively pursues a mission to impact lives through the power of unforgettable musical experiences.

About Interlochen Center for the Arts
The nonprofit Interlochen Center for the Arts is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the only organization in the world that brings together a 3,000-student summer camp program; a 550-plus-student fine arts boarding high school; a year-round source of expert online arts education for children, teens, and adults; opportunities for adults to engage in fulfilling artistic and creative programs; two 24-hour, listener-supported public radio services (classical music and news); more than 600 arts presentations annually by students, faculty, and world-renowned guest artists; a robust hospitality division that curates on-campus lodging, dining, and transportation services; and a global alumni base spanning nine decades, including leaders in the arts and all other endeavors. For information, visit Interlochen online at www.interlochen.org.