Background
She is the daughter of Manelick de la Parra, a writer and editor, and Graciela Borja, a sociologist and educator. Her father was a film student at New York University and her mother a sociology student at the New School at the time of her birth and early childhood, through age 3.
Education
After a year of study at Street Leonards-Mayfield School, she studied composition at the Centre of Research and Musical Studies in Mexico City. She obtained a Bachelor of Medicine in Piano Performance under the direction of Jeffrey Cohen and studied conducting with Michael Charry and Kenneth Kiesler, receiving an Master of Arts in Conducting in 2008.
Career
The family subsequently moved to Mexico City, where de la Parra began her piano studies at age 7 and the cello at age 13. She also developed an interest in conducting around age 13. At age 19, de la Parra returned to New York City, to study piano and conducting at Manhattan School of Music.
Her other conducting mentors include Marin Alsop, Charles Dutoit, and Kurt Masur.
She served as an apprentice conductor with the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra. In 2003, de la Parra founded her own ensemble, the Mexican-American Orchestra, at the behest of the Mexican Consulate, which asked de la Parra to produce a concert featuring Mexican music for the Mexico Now Festival.
The resulting 65-member orchestra subsequently was renamed the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (POA), as of 2004. The POA toured to Mexico in 2007.
The POA and de la Parra released two commercial recordings, Mi Alma Mexicana – My Mexican Soul, and Travieso Carmesí.
In June 2011, the POA suspended operations because of financial difficulties. de la Parra was artistic director of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco from 2012 to 2013. In May 2015, de la Parra made her first guest-conducting appearance with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO). In October 2015, the QSO announced the appointment of de la Parra as its first-ever music director and first-ever female conductor in its principal conducting post, effective in 2017.
Alondra de la Parra and her family reside in Mexico City.
She is currently a United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund Ambassador and an official Cultural Ambassador of Mexico.