José-Luis Novo, Music Director
One of Spain's most promising young conductors,
José-Luis Novo is currently in his sixth season as
Music Director and Conductor of the Binghamton
Philharmonic, and his fourth season as Music Director
and Conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra
(Maryland). 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-Cobos and Music
Director Paavo Järvi, and the Cincinnati Pops
Orchestra under Erich Kunzel. He has also held the
positions of Music Director of the Cincinnati
Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Oxford Chamber
Orchestra (Ohio), 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. Since 1999 he has been a
Resident Conductor at the Eastern Music Festival in
Greensboro, North Carolina.
Recent and upcoming engagements include the
Baltimore, Syracuse, Modesto, Tulsa, Ridgefield,
Tallahassee and Stamford Symphonies, the National
Repertory Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute of
Music Orchestra and the Abilene Philharmonic.
Previous guest conducting engagements have included
appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Windsor Symphony,
the Andrés Segovia Chamber Orchestra at the National
Auditorium in Madrid, the Vallés Symphony Orchestra
at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona, the
Principado de Asturias Symphony Orchestra, the
Cleveland Philharmonic, the Springfield Symphony
(Ohio), the Echternach Festival Orchestra at the
Kennedy Center and on tour in Luxembourg and
Germany, the City of Granada Orchestra, the Tenerife
Symphony Orchestra and the Castilla y León Symphony
Orchestra. 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 Royal
Opera House in Madrid and the World Exposition in
Lisbon.
He made his operatic debut conducting a production
of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride in
collaboration with Maestro Julius Rudel, and
subsequently has conducted productions of Britten’s
Albert Herring, Menotti’s Old Maid and
the Thief, and Vaughan Williams’ Riders to
the Sea.
As a violinist, Mr. Novo has appeared in concerts
and recitals in Europe and in the United States, and
has made recordings for the Spanish and Norwegian
National Radios. He is a founding member of
several important ensembles in which he has held
leading positions: as concertmaster and soloist with
the Youth Chamber Orchestra of Spain, as principal
second violin of the New Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and
as concertmaster of the National Youth Orchestra of
Spain.
José-Luis Novo began his musical studies in his
hometown of Valladolid. At the conservatory
there, he obtained the degree of Profesor
Superior de Violín, with honors in solfege,
harmony, and violin. A scholarship from the
Spanish Ministry of Culture allowed him to continue
his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in
Brussels, where he earned a First Prize in violin.
In 1988, he came to the United States as a Fulbright
Scholar, obtaining both Master of Music and Master
of Musical Arts degrees from Yale University, where
he was also bestowed the Frances G. Wickes Award and
the Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize.
In 1992, the Spanish foundation La Caixa awarded him
a fellowship to study at the Cleveland Institute of
Music where he completed a Master of Music degree in
orchestral conducting. Finally, he concluded
his conducting studies at the University of
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His
conducting teachers have included Gerhard Samuel,
Carl Topilow, Louis Lane, Edmon Colomer, James Ross,
and Charles Bruck (at the Pierre Monteux School in
Maine). In addition, Mr. Novo has attended
seminars and master classes with Günther Herbig,
Lorin Maazel, Cristoph von Dohnänyi, Leonard Slatkin,
Larry Rachleff, Daniel Lewis, Victor Yampolsky, and
Christopher Wilkins.