This preview has been provided by the Eastern Music Festival.
Student winners of the EMF Concerto Competition take to the stage to perform their winning repertoire. Then conductor José-Luis Novo leads the orchestra in Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
One of Spain’s most promising conductors, José-Luis Novo is currently music director and conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra (MD) and the Binghamton Philharmonic (NY). Prior to these appointments, Mr. Novo served as assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of both music director emeritus Jesús López-Cobus and music director Paavo Järvi, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under the late Erich Kunzel. He has been the resident conductor at EMF since 1999.
Most recently, Mr. Novo made an impressive Kimmel Center debut in Philadelphia, conducting the Curtis Institute Orchestra in a last-minute replacement for an ailing Maestro Otto Werner Mueller. Prior guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the Baltimore Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Syracuse, Modesto, Tulsa, Windsor, Stamford, Tallahassee, Springfield (Ohio), and Ridgefield symphonies; the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra; the Cleveland and Abilene philharmonics; the Tenerife, Principado de Asturias, and Castilla y León symphony orchestras; the City of Granada Orchestra; the Andrés Segovia Chamber Orchestra at the National Auditorium in Madrid; the Vallés Symphony Orchestra at the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona; and the Echternach Festival Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and on tour in Luxembourg and Germany.
While maintaining a promising professional conducting career, Mr. Novo has also developed a reputation as a keen educator of young musicians. He has held the positions of music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Miami University Symphony Orchestra; associate conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra; and assistant conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain and the Yale Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he has conducted many noteworthy college and youth orchestras. Among these are the Curtis Institute Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, the University of Maryland Symphony, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and the Portuguesa State Youth Orchestra of the Venezuelan El Sistema. In the summer of 1998 he took the National Youth Orchestra of Spain on a concert tour of Spain and Portugal, with performances at the Teatro Real in Madrid and the World Exposition in Lisbon.
Mr. Novo is a 2008 recipient of an ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award and a 2005 Heart of the Arts Award. He holds music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale University, and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels.
The Eastern Music Festival’s mission is to promote musical enrichment, excellence, professional collaboration, innovation, and diversity through a nationally-recognized teaching program, music festival, concerts, and other programs which will enhance the quality of life, health, and vitality of our region. The Eastern Music Festival and School, founded in 1961 in Greensboro, North Carolina by Sheldon Morgenstern, is an internationally-renowned classical music festival and institute for young musicians that runs for five weeks each summer. The institute accepts students ages 14 through 22 from around the country and the world. The EMF faculty consists of world-class performing artists selected from top orchestras and music schools nationally and internationally. Led by music director Gerard Schwarz, the Eastern Music Festival and School celebrates its 51st season in 2012.
