THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2019-2020 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.”
After a successful first season as assistant conductor
of The Florida Orchestra, Black was promoted to
associate conductor for the 2019/20 season. This
season, he makes his guest-conducting debuts
with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamilton
Philharmonic Orchestra, and Kitchener-Waterloo
Symphony Orchestra. Season highlights include
a Masterworks program with TFO featuring
violinist Benjamin Bielman, the films Back to the
Future and Return of the Jedi with the Kitchener-
Waterloo Symphony and TFO; summer concerts
with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; and more
than forty additional performances with TFO. He is
also one of four promising young conductors invited
to work with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as
part of the WSO’s Canadian Conductor Showcase.
Additional highlights of recent seasons include
guest conducting engagements with the San
Antonio Symphony Orchestra and Dnipro State
Opera and Ballet Company in Dnipro, Ukraine, as
well as engagements as assistant conductor for
opera productions with Michigan Opera Theatre,
Opera Theatre St. Louis, and Florentine Opera
Company.
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.
In 2018, he also was one of eight recipients of a
Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award,
his third such honor. In 2017, he won the 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. During his tenure as associate
conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra,
he conducted over 150 performances. He has been
engaged as cover conductor by the Dallas Symphony
Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra.
A former conducting fellow at the Aspen Music
Festival and 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.
Also an accomplished composer, Black was the
composer-in-residence for the International Horn
Society’s 2014 Southeast Horn Workshop, and he 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.
DANIEL BLACK
Associate Conductor