Music Director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra since 2015 and the American Youth Symphony since 2016, Carlos Izcaray has been widely praised for his contributions to the development of both organizations and his leadership throughout the recent pandemic. Increasingly active and highly regarded as a composer, Izcaray wrote several works during the lockdown to unite young musicians and develop their skills: Bloom for percussion ensemble and electronics, Symphony of Colors, featuring the students of the Alabama School of Fine Arts, and Geometric Unity for orchestra. As he writes of Geometric Unity:

Geometric Unity was the first virtual orchestra piece written and featured via streaming platforms during the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. Working together with the team of the American Youth Symphony, I looked for ways to keep developing the performance skills of those incredibly gifted young musicians, even though they could not come together in person. Originally written for 20+ players and designed to be performed and experienced from home via technological means, Geometric Unity was later adapted as a concert overture for full orchestra. The music consists of seven episodes threaded together, each with different moods that go from wonder to sorrow, joy, and triumphant thrill. The main source of inspiration came during the first days of this project, as I came across an online discussion of Eric Weinstein’s new theory titled Geometric Unity. Fascinated by his idea of a 14-dimensional “observerse” and the mathematical equations supporting it, I set up to provide a harmonic sound for this “observerse,” aiming for a matching texture that could be both complex yet palatable and enriching for the common ear. This determines the first episode, from which all others derive.