[5] Commissions have included composers such as David Lang, Augusta Read Thomas, Julia Wolfe, and Aaron Jay Kernis.

The New York Times wrote: "its players ... are sufficiently devoted to the music that when they perform at Carnegie Hall ... they produce a sound that would do an adult orchestra proud, in programs built largely of cornerstones of the standard canon.

The Jazz Band has featured soloists and clinicians such as Joe Lovano, Maria Schneider, Conrad Herwig, Steve Turre, Warren Vaché, Victor Goines, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath, Joe Locke, Eric Reed, Lew Soloff, Gary Smulyan, and Frank Wess, giving students a chance to play alongside today's most exciting professional musicians.

Mr. McAdams's contribution here was an emphasis on the music's extremes of clarity and mystery, delicacy and grandeur.The Youth Symphony is an accomplished, ambitious group of players ranging in age from 12 to 22.

Mr. McAdams's tenure follows that of Paul Haas, a charismatic conductor whose adventurous programs drew attention to the orchestra ... A rousing account of Stravinsky's "Firebird" Suite (1919) offered further compelling evidence that the Youth Symphony is in good hands with Mr. McAdams.The New York Sun has called the orchestra "America's best youth symphony."

[18] The canceled performance was of "Marsh u Nebuttya" ("March to Oblivion," in Ukrainian), a commissioned 9-minute piece composed by Estonian-born Jonas Tarm, a 21-year-old junior at the New England Conservatory of Music.

[18][19] Shauna Quill, executive director of the Symphony, said the decision to pull the piece was informed by Tarm's refusal, when asked, to explain why the excerpt is included in the work.

"[18] In a later statement, Tarm added that the piece is "devoted to the victims who have suffered from cruelty and hatred of war, totalitarianism, polarizing nationalism — in the past and today.