Kedrick Armstrong

Kedrick Armstrong is the new Music Director of the Oakland Symphony, becoming the 9th Music Director in the orchestra’s almost 100-year history. He is also the Creative Partner and Principal Conductor of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony. Recent highlights include debuting at the Lyric Opera of Chicago to premiere a new opera, The Factotum, by Will Liverman and DJ King Rico. He also appeared at the Opera Theater of St. Louis as one of the festival’s assistant/cover conductors (Tosca, La Boheme, Susannah). Guest conducting engagements have included a SummerStage and family concert with the Oakland Symphony, DePaul Opera Theater (Candide), and Chicago Opera Theater (Matthew Recio’s The Puppy Episode). He has also served as assistant conductor for Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride at Chicago Opera Theater and music director for Monteverdi’s L’Orfero with Wheaton College’s Opera Mainstage. Kedrick is on the music staff at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Washington National Opera. This season, he leads members of the Chicago Symphony in Daniel Bernard Roumain's Voodoo Violin Concerto No. 1.

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser

EBCP Chair

A passionate communicator, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser brings clarity and meaning to the concert hall, fostering deep connections between audiences and performers. Bartholomew-Poyser concurrently holds two conducting posts: Barrett Principal Education Conductor and Community Ambassador of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Artist in Residence and Community Ambassador of Symphony Nova Scotia. He served as Assistant Conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and Associate Conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Bartholomew-Poyser has performed with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Chicago Philharmonic; has enjoyed an increasing partnership with the San Francisco Symphony over six seasons; and was cover conductor with the Washington National Opera in 2020.

In the 2021–22 season Bartholomew-Poyser will debut with the Carnegie Hall Link-Up Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Regina Symphony Orchestra, and the Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra. Host of Canadian Broadcasting Company’s (CBC) nationally broadcast weekly radio show Centre Stage, he also serves on the Boards of both Orchestras Canada and The Conductor’s Retreat at Medomak, headquartered in Michigan. He is the subject of a multi award-winning CBC documentary Disruptor Conductor, focusing on his efforts to extend the boundaries of the orchestral music world through concerts for Neurodiverse, Prison, African Diaspora, and LGBTQ2S+ populations. 

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser earned his Bachelor in Music Performance and Education from the University of Calgary, and his Master of Philosophy in Performance from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England

Daphne Burt

Manager of Artistic Planning for the NAC

Daphne Burt is the manager of artistic planning for the Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. With music director Alexander Shelley, she leads the program planning for the full season of the NAC Orchestra, where her passions are discovering new voices and supporting the work of Canadian artists.

Throughout her career in classical music, including programming for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, she has worked with a long list of  conductors and composes alike, including Pinchas Zukerman, Oliver Knussen, Xian Zhang, Joana Carneiro, Howard Shore, Philip Glass, and Ana Sokolovic.,

As artistic manager for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Burt was a founding member of Symphonic Pops Consortium which, from within the orchestra industry, develops new programs of popular music for North American Orchestras.

Daphne has called Canada home for the past 20 years. She hails from south Georgia, where she learned bassoon and piano, and her childhood delights were old movies, marching band, and her family’s catfish restaurant.

Kalena Bovell

Manager of Artistic Planning for the NAC

With her distinctive voice as a maestra, speaker, and poet, Panamanian-American conductor Kalena Bovell has earned acclaim as “one of the brightest stars in classical music” (Channel 3 News, Connecticut). Her dedication to musical excellence and community engagement has led to remarkable achievements, including receiving the prestigious 2024 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor from the Sphinx Organization, and making history as the first Black woman to conduct an opera in Canada. Formerly the Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony, her guest conducting credits span the Minnesota Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and Orchestre classique de Montréal. Additionally, she has collaborated on educational initiatives with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute. As a guest clinician, her residencies have included the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory, and The Juilliard School Pre-College.

Cristian Măcelaru

GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Cristian Măcelaru is the Music Director Designate of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival and Competition, Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ World Youth Symphony Orchestra, Music Director and Conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and Chief Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, where he will serve through the 2024/25 seasonand continue as Artistic Partner for the 2025/26 season.

Măcelaru recently appeared at the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony which was broadcast to1.5 billion viewers worldwide. He led the Orchestre National de France and Chœurde Radio France in the performance of the Olympic Anthem as the Olympic Flag was raised beneath the Eiffel Tower. Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France continue their 2024/25 season in tours throughout France, Germany, South Korea and China.Guest appearances include his debuts with the Oslo Philharmonic and RAI National Symphony Orchestrain Turinas well as returns with the Wiener Symphoniker, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra,Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in Europe. In North America, Măcelaru leads the Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

In 2020, he received a GRAMMY® Award for conducting the Decca Classics recording of Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His most recent releaseis ofEnescuSymphoniesand two Romanian Rhapsodies with theOrchestre National de France, released on Deutsche Grammophon.

D. Riley Nicholson

Executive Director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

D. Riley Nicholson is a composer, pianist, and arts management professional, equally committed to creating original work and supporting performing arts organizations through management, administration, and governance. With a focus on organizational inventiveness, artistic innovation, and human-centered community building, Nicholson has fostered growth and connectedness through his previous roles as Executive Director of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, Project Manager for the Center for New Music, and various roles at Post:Ballet, Berkeley Ballet Theater, and Dance Film SF. Currently, Nicholson is the Executive Director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the nation's longest-standing and preeminent festival dedicated to new music for orchestra.

Committed to working with artists outside of music as well as within, Nicholson has composed and performed for a wide range of ensembles and mediums. Notable projects include his work One, for large string orchestra, which headlined Hot Air Music Festival in 2016. Nicholson composed, produced, and performed Shimmer, for piano, visuals, and electronics which toured nationally in 2018. Later that year, he was honored as the CAPMT Distinguished Composer of the Year. In 2019, Joshua Kosman described his performance of the music of Julius Eastman as a "powerful, ingeniously wrought rendition." (SF Chronicle). That same year, Nicholson wrote a new work for Amaranth String Quartet. In 2021, Nicholson collaborated with Jeremy Banon-Neches/ ODC Dance to create original music for the Walking Distance Dance Festival. In 2022, he wrote a full-length electroacoustic piece for David Herrera Performance Company. Currently, Nicholson is collaborating with pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers on a commercial recording of his work "Up" and is writing a new work for the electric guitar collective HARJO.

Shawn Okpebholo

GRAMMY®-nominated for his latest solo album "Lord, How Come Me Here?" and named one of the 2023 Musical America Top 30 Professionals of the Year, Nigerian-American composer Shawn E. Okpebholo's music resonates globally, earning widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Okpebholo has garnered numerous accolades, including awards from The Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Prize in Composition, the Music Publishers Association, ASCAP, and was awarded the Inaugural honoree of the Leslie Adams-Robert Owens Composition Award.

Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, Barlow Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, Tangeman Sacred Music Center, The Mellon Foundation, Wheaton College, and many others have supported the work of Okpebholo.

As a pedagogue, Okpebholo has conducted masterclasses at various academic institutions worldwide, including two universities in Nigeria. His research interests have led to ethnomusicological fieldwork in both East and West Africa, resulting in compositions, transcriptions, and academic lectures. He earned his master's and doctoral degrees in composition from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati. During his upbringing, a significant part of his music education came from The Salvation Army church, where he received free music lessons regularly. Inspired by that altruism, Okpebholo is deeply passionate about music outreach to underserved communities.

Recently, he completed a residency with the Chicago Opera Theater, culminating in the premiere of his opera, "The Cook-Off," with librettist Mark Campbell (librettist of the Pulitzer-prize-winning opera Silent Night). Currently, he serves as the Jonathan Blanchard Distinguished Professor of Composition at Wheaton College-Conservatory of Music and the Saykaly Garbulinska Composer-in-Residence with the Lexington Philharmonic.

Shawn E. Okpebholo is based in Wheaton, IL, a suburb of Chicago, with his wife, violist Dorthy, and their daughters, Eva and Corinne.

Edwin Outwater

Internationally Recognized Conductor, SFCM Music Director

Considered “one of the most innovative conductors on the scene today,” Edwin Outwater works with orchestras and institutions throughout the world, producing, curating, and conducting unique concert experiences. He frequently premieres new works and connects audiences with repertoire beyond the mainstream. Recent wide-ranging projects include collaborations with Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, John Lithgow, and Metallica. Outwater has a long association with the San Francisco Symphony. He regularly conducts and curates their SoundBox series, and has conducted and hosted “Holiday Gaiety”, an LGBTQ holiday concert he created with drag performer Peaches Christ. He was Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra leading them on a highly acclaimed European tour, and also served as San Francisco Symphony Director of Summer Concerts. Outwater is Music Director Laureate of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, where he returns regularly. Recent guest appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

Valérie Sainte-Agathe

Artistic Director, SF Girls Chorus

Valérie Sainte-Agathe, a native of Martinique, is the  Chorale Director of Philharmonia Baroque. She has served as the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus since 2013, and developed projects with Chanticleer, The King’s singers, Roomful of teeth and Tenet. She toured with Kronos Quartet to conduct the world premiere of At War With Ourselves by Michael Abels throughout the U.S and was invited as a guest conductor with the San Francisco Symphony for a program featuring works of Brahms conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann. Later this fall, she will be the Guest Conductor for new music ensemble Volti, creating pieces by Caroline Shaw and Pamela Z.

In 2018, Ms. Sainte-Agathe made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Philip Glass Ensemble, conducting with Michael Riesman in Glass’s Music with Changing Parts. She also conducted the Philip Glass Ensemble in another performance of this work making her debut at London’s prestigious Barbican Center in 2019 . Between 2014 and 2016, she prepared choruses for Lisa Bielawa’s made-for-TV opera, Vireo and for Taylor Mac’s "Holiday Sauce'' production.

She released two recordings Final Answer, on Orange Mountain Music, and My Outstretched Hand, featuring composer Aaron Jay Kernis and The Knights conducted by Eric Jacobsen.

Nina Shekhar

Nina Shekhar is a composer and multimedia artist who explores the intersection of identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter to create bold and intensely personal works.

Described as “tart and compelling” (New York Times) and an “orchestral supernova” (LA Times), her music has been commissioned and performed by the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Alarm Will Sound. Her work has been featured by the Hollywood Bowl, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Library of Congress.

Shekhar is on the Composition faculty of Mannes School of Music at The New School. She is currently serving as Composer-in-Residence of The Crossing and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 2023-2024 Sound Investment Composer. She previously completed her tenure as Composer-in-Residence for Young Concert Artists. Shekhar is a PhD candidate at Princeton University. She is a first-generation Indian American and a native of Detroit, Michigan.

Trevor Weston

2021 EBCP Fellow

Trevor Weston’s music has been called a “gently syncopated marriage of intellect and feeling.” (Detroit Free Press) Weston’s honors include; the George Ladd Prix de Paris from the University of California, Berkeley, a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and the Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a fellow from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the MacDowell Colony. Weston won the first Emerging Black Composers Project sponsored by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Symphony.

Weston’s Flying Fish, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its 125 Commission Project and the American Composers Orchestra, was described as having, “…episodes of hurtling energy, the music certainly suggested wondrous aquatic feats.” The Bang on a Can All-Stars premiered Weston’s Dig It, for the Ecstatic Music Festival in NYC in 2019. Weston’s work Juba for Strings won the 2019 Sonori/New Orleans Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition.

Dr. Weston is currently Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Drew University in Madison, NJ and an instructor for the MAP and Pre-College programs at the Juilliard School, NYC.

Jeffrey Zeigler

Internationally Renowed Cellist and Collaborator

Jeffrey Zeigler is one of the most innovative and versatile cellists of our time. He has been described as “fiery”, and a player who performs “with unforced simplicity and beauty of tone” by the New York Times. Acclaimed for his independent streak, Zeigler has commissioned dozens of works, and is admired as a potent collaborator and unique improviser. As a member of the Kronos Quartet, he is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, the Polar Music Prize, the President’s Merit Award from the National Academy of Recorded Arts (Grammy’s), the Chamber Music America National Service Award and The Asia Society's Cultural Achievement Award.

Jeffrey Zeigler was the cellist of the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet for eight seasons. Mr. Zeigler has released dozens of recordings for Nonesuch Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cantaloupe and Smithsonian Folkways and has appeared with Norah Jones on her album Not Too Late on Blue Note Records. Zeigler can also be heard on the film soundtrack for Paolo Sorrentino’s Academy Award winning film, La Grande Bellezza, as well as Clint Mansell’s Golden Globe nominated soundtrack to the Darren Aronofsky film, The Fountain. Zeigler is currently the Assistant Professor of Chamber Music and Innovation at the Frost School of Music of the University of Miami.