THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2018-2019 17
“Firm, decisive,” “vital and engaging” and “with
a droll sense of humor on the podium,” Canadabased
American conductor Daniel Black has begun
to attract attention as a conductor who “makes
music in a way that is meaningful to audiences in
the 21st century.”
This season Black will conduct over twenty
performances with TFO, including Pops, Coffee
Concerts, and youth and outreach programs,
while working closely with Music Director Michael
Francis, Principal Guest Conductor Stuart Malina,
and Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik. He will
conduct Bernstein’s Candide with Michigan Opera
Theatre in March, and will make his debut as guest
conductor of the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra
in April. Black also was one of eight recipients of a
Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award in
2018 – his third such honor.
In 2017/18, Black made his debut as guest
conductor with the San Antonio Symphony
Orchestra and the Dnipro State Opera and Ballet
Company in a production of Verdi’s Rigoletto.
He also debuted with Michigan Opera Theatre,
serving as assistant conductor for productions
of Rigoletto and Le Nozze di Figaro. In addition, he
served as assistant conductor with the Florentine
Opera Company’s production of Die Zauberflöte,
with a second consecutive Solti Foundation U.S.
opera conducting fellowship and continued as
director of instrumental music at the Wildwood Arts
and Music Academy in Little Rock.
Black’s previous guest-conducting engagements
have included the St. Petersburg (Russia) State
Academic Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Basically
Beethoven Festival, Owensboro Symphony,
Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wichita Falls
Symphony, Rockford Symphony, Champaign-
Urbana Symphony, and South Shore Opera
Company. As music director of the Oshkosh
Symphony Orchestra, he created the first
professional recording of John Harmon’s Crazy
Horse symphony.
Black won the 2017 Solti Foundation U.S. opera
conducting fellowship, working with conductor
Stephen Lord and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He
has also toured China as assistant conductor of
the Chinese premiere of composer/conductor
Bright Sheng’s opera Dream of the Red Chamber. As
associate conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony
Orchestra, he conducted over 150 performances,
including stepping in at a moment’s notice for
his subscription debut in place of Miguel Harth-
Bedoya. He has been engaged as cover conductor
by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the St. Louis
Symphony.
A conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and
the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, he
has studied with Kurt Masur, Edo de Waart, Robert
Spano, Hugh Wolff, Larry Rachleff, Marin Alsop,
Daniel Lewis, David Effron, and Gunther Schuller.
An accomplished composer, he was the composerin
residence for the International Horn Society’s
2014 Southeast Horn Workshop and was a finalist
and diploma winner of the International Prokofiev
Composition Contest in April 2008.
Fluent in Russian, Black has studied conducting at
the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Eastman School
of Music, and Northwestern University, counting
among his mentors Leonid Korchmar, Neil Varon
and Victor Yampolsky. He has studied composition
with Richard Danielpour. He is married to Canadian
hornist Marie-Sonja Cotineau, of the Kitchener-
Waterloo Symphony in Ontario.
DANIEL BLACK
Assistant Conductor
© Eric Souza