Alumna Shauna Quill Part of Historic Grammy Win

Though the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of the New York Youth Symphony's scheduled Carnegie Hall performance in 2020, the NYYS kept making music. Shauna Quill, the executive director of the NYYS and a 1997 graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music , remembers the start of a recording project back in 2020. "The recording was made when performance wasn't possible - even being in the same room with the 100-person orchestra wasn't possible," recalled Quill, who majored in flute performance at CMU. "Anyone who took courses in music recording and engineering with Riccardo Schulz at CMU will know it took quite a feat to make this recording work." The Youth Symphony, comprising musicians ranging in age from 12 to 22, notched a major achievement simply by being nominated for a Grammy in the Best Orchestral Performance category against the likes of the Berlin Philharmonic and L.A. Philharmonic. On Sunday night, the symphony's young musicians waited expectantly as they watched the live Grammy broadcast, gathered in their rehearsal room. As their category came up, "The Grammy goes to.. 'The Works of..'" The remainder of the announcement was inaudible over the cheers and shrieks of the ecstatic youths.