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, she is currently in her second season as assistant conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra.
In the 2025–26 season, Ms. Woo makes debuts with the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, the 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, the Calgary Philharmonic, and the 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, Ms. Woo has appeared with the Toronto, Baltimore, and Montreal symphonies; the National Arts Centre Orchestra; London’s Philharmonia, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Chamber Orchestra of Luxembourg, and at LSO St. Luke’s in London with Tangram Sound, an ensemble devoted to celebrating the vitality of Chinese cultures and creating new music by transnational Chinese creators.
On the opera stage, Ms. Woo has conducted the Canadian premiere of Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Angel’s Bone in Vancouver, Puccini’s Edgar at Opera Holland Park, Rossini’s La Cenerentola with English Touring Opera, and the world premiere of Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s The Night Falls in New York City. Recognized for her collaborative approach and natural command for storytelling and language, Ms. Woo has conducted more than a dozen operas with students and young professionals in United States and the United Kingdom, 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, Ms. Woo was music director of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada for its 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, the Winnipeg Symphony, and others.
Ms. Woo holds a Ph.D. 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 the University of Montreal. The 2022 winner of the Canada Council’s prestigious Virginia Parker Prize, she is a member of Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership program 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.