Scott Yoo, guest conductor
Scott Yoo is Music Director of the Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo, California. He has also served as Music Director of the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble he co-founded in 1993. Maestro Yoo continues his role as the Resident Conductor for the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, which he has headed for the past 4 seasons.
In addition to leading Metamorphosen in its subscription series at Jordan Hall in Boston, he has conducted the ensemble in debut performances in New York and Washington D.C. Highlights of the 2001-2002 season for Mr. Yoo and Metamorphosen included a 26-city U.S. tour and a CD release with violinist Mark O’Connor for Sony Classical.
Mr. Yoo served as Associate Conductor of the Dallas Symphony for the 1999-2000 season, after serving one season as the orchestra’s Assistant Conductor and it’s Acting Concertmaster. He made his Dallas Symphony subscription debut in November 2000 with bassist Edgar Meyer as soloist.
Yoo is also a frequent collaborator with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra—with whom he appeared for the first time in the 2004-05 season and with whom he has conducted concerts and other projects every season since that time.
An exponent of new music, Mr. Yoo has introduced a newly commissioned work on each of Metamorphosen’s subscription concerts. In the last eight seasons, Mr. Yoo has premiered 42 works by 20 composers.
This season Maestro Yoo makes debut appearances with the Yomiuri-Nippon Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the City of London Sinfonia, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the San Antonio Symphony and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He returns to lead the Seoul Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the New World Symphony Miami, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Toledo Symphony, and the Mexico City Philharmonic.
Last season (2007-08), Mr. Yoo returned to conduct several weeks of concerts with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and also lead the orchestras of Columbus Ohio (A Golijov Festival with Dawn Upshaw as soloist), Louisville, Virginia, Alabama, Ft Wayne, Colorado, and Grand Rapids. He also continued his long-standing relationship with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra in Winnipeg.
In 2006-07, Mr. Yoo made subscription concert conducting appearances with the Utah Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, the Omaha Symphony, the Seoul Philharmonic and others. He returned to conduct several projects with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and also returned to conduct the New World Symphony in Miami and the Nashville Symphony. He made a highly successful debut with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in the Young Concert Artists Diamond Gala concert at Lincoln Center in April 2007.
An accomplished violinist in his own right, Mr. Yoo has also play/conducted with the San Francisco Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, and the Kansas City Symphony.
Maestro Yoo has also conducted the orchestras of Charlotte, Oregon, Tulsa, Victoria (British Columbia), Toledo, Wheeling, Delaware, Honolulu, the Estonian National Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.
A recording of the complete orchestral works of Earl Kim under the baton of Mr. Yoo with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland can be heard on the Naxos “American Classics” label; and a cycle of Mozart symphonies is slated for recording with the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival.
An active chamber musician, Mr. Yoo has made frequent appearances with chamber music festivals throughout the United States, including Bargemusic, Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Las Vegas Music Festival, Laurel Music Festival, New Hampshire Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Festival and Strings in the Mountains.
Scott Yoo began his musical studies with the violin at the age of three and performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony at the age of twelve. He studied the violin with Roman Totenberg, Albert Markov, Paul Kantor and Dorothy DeLay, and conducting with Michael Gilbert and Michael Tilson-Thomas. After winning first prize in the 1988 Josef Gingold International Violin Competition, he won the 1989 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 1994, he was the recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant. A year later, Mr. Yoo was named Young Artist-in-Residence of National Public Radio’s Performance Today.
Mr. Yoo graduated with honors and a B.A. in Physics from Harvard University in 1993.
