Canadian conductor Naomi Woo is gaining worldwide attention for her spirited dynamism and infectious musicality both on and off the podium. A widely sought-after symphonic and operatic conductor, Woo is currently in her second season as Assistant Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In the 2025/26 season, Woo makes debuts with the New York Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden. She also returns to Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain, where she was artistic partner from 2023 to 2025, as well as to the Vancouver Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic and City of London Sinfonia. A renowned advocate for contemporary music she conducts the world premiere of Oliver Leith’s Garland at Bold Tendencies in London and leads a workshop for Huang Ruo’s upcoming opera The Wedding Banquet at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
In previous seasons, Woo has appeared with Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Montreal Symphony, and National Arts Centre Orchestra in North America and elsewhere with London’s Philharmonia, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orchestre de Chambre de Luxembourg, and at LSO St. Luke’s in London with the ensemble Tangram Sound, an ensemble devoted to celebrating the vitality of Chinese cultures, and creating new music by transnational Chinese creators.
On the opera stage, she has conducted the Canadian premiere of Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone in Vancouver, Puccini Edgar at Opera Holland Park, Rossini La Cenerentola with English Touring Opera, and the world premiere of Ellis Ludwig-Leone The Night Falls in New York City. Recognised for her collaborative approach and natural command for storytelling and language, Woo 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), Sophie Seita (Beethoven Was a Lesbian), and Alex Ho/Julia Cheng.
A passionate educator, Woo was the music director of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada for their 2024 and 2025 seasons and is the former music director of El Sistema Winnipeg. As a pianist, she has led performances from the piano with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, and others.
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. 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 acknowledges generous support over the years from the Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Help Musicians UK, and the BC Arts Council.
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSOA by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
