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In the Academy Hospital Project, five Academy fellows, along with composer Missy Mazzoli, worked with sick children in New York hospitals to introduce them to elements of music including and melody. Mazzoli has written an original musical work entitled The Sound of Light based on the children's own musical creations. The work was premiered by the five fellows in Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts in Brooklyn and Queens on March 27 and 28, and was performed during a Carnegie Hall Family Concert in Zankel Hall on May 18.

	Raised as a jazz trumpeter in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nathan Botts now enjoys a diverse career as a classical soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, composer, improviser, and specialist on the historic natural trumpet. He has appeared in Beijing as a soloist with the China National Symphony, in Zurich with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, and in the United States with the Utah Premiere Brass. In June 2008 he'll premiere a new work for solo trumpet, soprano, and orchestra at Carnegie Hall with the Brigham Young University Chamber Orchestra. Making New York City his home, Nathan freelances regularly with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Riverside Symphony, Second Instrumental Unit, Wet Ink Ensemble, Concert Royal (natural trumpet), and a variety of Broadway shows. As a recording artist, he can be heard on numerous jazz, orchestral, soul, house, and bluegrass albums. Nathan is a graduate of both Brigham Young University and The Juilliard School. As part of his fellowship program, he teaches at IS 129 in the Bronx.
	A native of Long Island, trombonist Stephen Dunn studied at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, the Yale School of Music, and the Pierre Monteux School. In 2006, Stephen participated in a chamber music workshop with renowned conductor David Robertson, culminating in a performance of works of Varèse and Messiaen at Carnegie Hall. This past summer, the Aspen Music Festival and School awarded him a full fellowship, which included the opportunity to perform as principal trombone of the Aspen Chamber Symphony. Formerly principal trombone of the Monterrey Symphony Orchestra in Mexico, he has most recently performed with the Cincinnati, Hartford, and New World symphonies. As part of his fellowship program, Stephen teaches in Rockaway Park at the Region Five Scholars Academy, 323 Q.
	A native of Newfoundland, Canada, flutist Elizabeth Janzen is rapidly establishing herself in the New York City area as a prominent teacher and performer. After competing at a national level while still in high school, Elizabeth pursued formal studies at the University of Toronto and the Manhattan School of Music, where she is presently a doctoral candidate. Elizabeth has participated in internationally renowned programs such as the National Academy Orchestra, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the Sarasota Music Festival. She has also collaborated with such conductors as Pierre Boulez and David Robertson, and in 2005 she gave her New York debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. Elizabeth works actively as a freelance musician for orchestras, shows, and special events, and is currently on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College. As part of her fellowship program, Elizabeth teaches in Queens at The Adrien Block School, IS 25.
	In recent seasons, violinist Joanna Kaczorowska has performed at Carnegie Hall with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble; with conductor David Robertson at Carnegie Hall; and with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Other recent engagements include appearances with Itzhak Perlman at the Music @ Menlo and Aspen Music festivals, a tour to Rome with Mr. Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony, and chamber music concerts throughout Europe and the US with members of the Emerson String Quartet. Joanna has given the world premiere of Albert Carbonell’s Verbum at the Festival for Contemporary Performance in New York and the New York premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Sueños de Chambi at Steinway Hall. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst and the Pozna Music Academy, and is a doctoral candidate at SUNY–Stony Brook, where she studies with Philip Setzer and Pamela Frank. As part of her fellowship program, Joanna teaches in Brooklyn at PS 771.
	Pianist Michael Mizrahi has appeared as concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician with Leon Fleisher and the Curtis Chamber Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony, and Prince Georges Philharmonic Orchestra. He won First Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the 2004 Ima Hogg Competition, as well as first prizes in the Berkeley Piano Club Competition, the International Bartók-Kabalevsky Competition, and the Iowa International Piano Competition. He is a founding member of NOW Ensemble, a group devoted to the creation and performance of new music. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music and religion from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in piano performance from the Yale School of Music. As part of his fellowship program, Michael teaches in Queens at The Judge Charles J. Vallone School, PS 85Q.

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During this project the fellows worked with sick children in the Komansky Center for Children's Health at New York-Presbyterian, the Hospital of Columbia and Cornell Universities.

The participating patients were Jessica Marie, Jaiden, Kemora, Kathy, Inigo, Krystal, Melissa, Adam, Mehdi, Nicholas, Rene, Jonah, Rahmeen, Robert, Grace, Nina, Georgie, Muhammad, Haseeb, Shuja, Mark, Juan Carlos, Brendan and Alex.

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Missy Mazzoli's music has been performed all over the world by ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Spokane Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Present Music, NOW Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, Newspeak and Ensemble Klang. She has been described as "gifted" by Alex Ross of the New Yorker, and has been highly praised by the New York Times. Her work was recently performed as part of the MATA Festival of New Music, the Bang-on-a-Can New Music Marathon, the 2007 Cabrillo Festival of New Music, and Kathy Supove's Exploding Piano series. In 2006 Missy was a featured composer at Merkin Hall in New York City and at the Gaudeamus New Music Festival in Amsterdam. She is a recipient of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and grants from the American Music Center and the Jerome Foundation. In 2006 she taught beginning composition at Yale University, and is now Executive Director of the MATA Festival of New Music in New York City, an organization founded by Philip Glass dedicated to commissioning and promoting new works by young composers.

Missy was born in 1980 in the United States, and from 1998 to 2002 studied composition at Boston University with John Harbison and Charles Fussell. In 2002 she received a Fulbright grant and traveled to the Netherlands, where she studied with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. In 2004 she was composer-in-residence at STEIM, Amsterdam's center for electronic music. In 2006 she received her Masters at the Yale School of Music, where she worked with Aaron Kernis, Martin Bresnick and David Lang.

Upcoming projects include two performances of These Worlds In Us by the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as new works commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Eighth Blackbird, the Albany Symphony and the Santa Fe New Music Ensemble. She also recently received a Jerome Foundation Grant to support the creation of The Oblivion Seekers, a large-scale multimedia work featuring NOW Ensemble and filmmaker Stephen Taylor. .

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