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In the 2024/25 season, Woo makes debuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra (London), the Philadelphia Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony, Luxembourg Chamber Orchestra, and the Royal Conservatory Orchestra in Toronto. Return engagements include the Toronto Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Vancouver Symphony, and the Orchestre Métropolitain.
Highlights of her auspicious 2023/24 season included her first tour and recordings with NYO Canada in summer 2024; conducting engagements with the Orchestre Métropolitain, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, National Arts Center Orchestra, and Chautauqua Symphony; and leading opera productions with English Touring Opera and Opera Holland Park in the UK.
Engagements in previous seasons include the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Ann Arbor Symphony, Orchestra NOW (New York), Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and Regina Symphony, and her debut at LSO St.Luke’s in London with the ensemble Tangram Sound. Woo was the Assistant conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony from 2019 to 2023, and appeared with the orchestra on multiple occasions. On the opera stage, she has conducted the Canadian premiere of Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone in Vancouver, and the world premiere of Ellis Ludwig-Leone The Night Falls in New York City. In fall 2022, she assisted the world premiere of Oliver Leith’s opera Last Days at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and returned to assist Thomas Adès with the same work in its US premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The 2022 winner of the Canada Council’s prestigious Virginia Parker Prize, Woo is a member of Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership programme, and was chosen by her mentor Yannick Nézet-Séguin as a member of the Orchestre Métropolitain’s inaugural orchestral conducting academy. She was a resident of the 2022 Women Opera Makers Workshop at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, and, in 2018, was accepted into the first training course for women conductors at the National Opera Studio, hosted by the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Royal Opera House.
As an opera conductor and music director, Woo is remarkable for her collaborative approach and natural command for storytelling and language. She has conducted more than a dozen operas with students and young professionals in US and the UK, and collaboratively created new, genre-bending operatic works with Sasha Amaya and Catherine Kontz (A Certain Sense of Order, Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2017), Sophie Seita (Beethoven Was a Lesbian, Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2020), and Alex Ho/Julia Cheng (dramaturg for UNTOLD, Snape Maltings 2019).
Her passion for new work and artistic creation has also led to trainings and residencies at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the International Ensemble Modern Academy at Klangspuren Schwaz, Nida Art Colony (Vilnius Academy of the Arts), the Cortona Sessions for New Music, and more.
As a pianist, she has been a prize winner at the Eckhardt-Grammatté Competition for Canadian and Contemporary Music and winner of the Hélène Roberge Prize for Canadian Music. She is an artist with Tangram, an ensemble devoted to celebrating the vitality of Chinese cultures, and creating new music by transnational Chinese creators.
Also passionate about education, Woo was Music Director of the University of Manitoba Symphony Orchestra until 2023, and has made guest conducting and lecturing appearances at Oberlin Conservatory and the Royal Academy of Music. As the first-ever music director of Sistema Winnipeg, a program that uses music as a tool for social change, a commitment to using music to imaginatively transform the world runs through all of her work, including her PhD thesis from the University of Cambridge, titled The Practicality of the Impossible.
Woo holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She has also studied mathematics, philosophy, and music at Yale College, the Yale School of Music, and Université de Montréal. Her formative training before university took place at the Vancouver Academy of Music. She acknowledges generous support over the years from the Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Help Musicians UK, and the BC Arts Council.
2023/24 season - 693 words. Not to be altered without permission.
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Les faits saillants de sa prometteuse saison 23-24 comprennent des engagements de direction avec l’Orchestre Métropolitain, les orchestres symphoniques de Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver, et l’Orchestre du Centre National des Arts; ainsi une tournée en Angleterre pour diriger Cinderella de l’English Touring Opera. En tant qu’assistante/chef d’orchestre de reprise, Naomi travaille avec l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Los Angeles, l’Orchestre de Philadelphie, l’Orchestre symphonique de Toronto, l’Orchestre Métropolitain, et elle dirige des concerts classiques sur abonnement avec les orchestres symphoniques de Illinois, Laval, Trois-Rivières, de la Côte-Nord, Nova Scotia, et Thunder Bay.
Au cours des saisons précédentes, elle a participé à l’Orchestre du Centre National des Arts, l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Calgary, l’Orchestre symphonique d’Ann Arbor, l’Orchestre NOW (New York), l’Orchestre symphonique de Kitchener-Waterloo, et à l’Orchestre symphonique de Regina, ainsi qu’à ses débuts au LSO St. Luke’s de Londres avec l’ensemble Tangram Sound. Naomi a été chef adjoint de l’Orchestre symphonique de Winnipeg de 2019 à 2023 et s’est produite avec l’orchestre à plusieurs reprises. Sur la scène de l’opéra, elle à dirigé la première canadienne d’Angel’s Bone de Du Yun et la première mondiale de The Night Falls d’Ellis Ludwig-Leone à New York. À l’automne 2022, elle a assisté à la première mondiale de l’opéra Last Days d’Oliver Leith au Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
Récipiendaire du prestigieux prix Virginia Parker en 2022, Naomi est membre du programme Women in Musical Leadership de Tapestry Opera et a été choisie par son mentor Yannick Nézet-Séguin comme membre de la première académie de direction d’orchestre de l’Orchestre Métropolitain.
Naomi est titulaire d'un doctorat de l'Université de Cambridge, où elle a été boursière Gates Cambridge. Elle a également étudié les mathématiques, la philosophie et la musique au Yale College, à la Yale School of Music et à l'Université de Montréal.
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Höhepunkte der Spielzeit 23-24 sind ihre erste Tour sowie CD-Aufnahmen mit dem NYO Canada, Engagements mit dem Vancouver Symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Toronto Symphony und dem National Arts Center Orchestra. Bei der English Touring Opera dirigiert sie Rossinis Dornröschen und bei der Opera Holland Park Puccinis Edgar. Zudem assistiert sie Thomas Adès beim Los Angeles Philharmonic und ihrem Mentor Yannick Nézet-Séguin beim Orchestre Métropolitain.
Naomi Woo war bei zahlreichen nordamerikanischen Orcehstern zu Gast, u.a. National Arts Centre Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Ann Arbor Symphony, Orchestra NOW (New York), Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, und Regina Symphony. 2019 bis 2023 war sie Assistenzdirigentin beim Winnipeg Symphony. Sie gewann den hochangesehenen Virginia Parker Prize des Canada Council und ist Mitglied von Tapestry Operas Women in Musical Leadership program.
Naomi Woo erwarb ein Ph.D. an der University of Cambridge, wo sie ein Gates Cambridge Scholarship innehatte. Sie studierte zudem Mathematik, Philosophie und Musik am Yale College, der Yale School of Music, und der Université de Montréal.