NAOMI WOO has been named assistant conductor at Canada’s Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, effective with the start of the 2019-20 season. The 29-year-old Canadian is a conductor, pianist, and musicologist who has performed in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She has conducted and performed many world premieres and other works by living composers. She placed second in the 2016 Eckhardt-Gramatté competition in Brandon for Canadian and contemporary music, and was awarded the Prix Hélène-Roberge for the best performance of a Canadian work in 2015. Woo holds a BA in mathematics and philosophy from Yale University, and will soon complete a PhD in musicology at Cambridge University in England as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She will be responsible for conducting all Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra educational concerts, and will be the first music director of Sistema Winnipeg and music director of the University of Manitoba Orchestra. She will also lead the WSO’s Holiday Tour. The WSO states that a goal of the assistant conductor position is to provide musical development and career enhancement for female orchestral conductors. Daniel Raiskin is the WSO’s music director.
Posted June 4, 2019
