David Hayes
Music Director

David Hayes is a conductor with an unusually broad range of repertory, spanning the symphonic, oratorio and operatic genres. He serves on the conducting staff of The Philadelphia Orchestra, is the Director of Orchestral and Conducting Studies for the Mannes College of Music in New York City and Staff Conductor of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. In addition to these duties, he served as Artistic Advisor for the Washington Chorus for the 2007-2008 season.

At the request of Wolfgang Sawallisch, Mr. Hayes made his Philadelphia Orchestra conducting debut in 2003 and has since conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra on several occasions, including the 2007 and 2008 Academy of Music Anniversary concerts. This season, in addition to performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Mannes Orchestra and The Philadelphia Singers, he will lead a new production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia for the Opera Company of Philadelphia and lead workshop rehearsals with Hillary Hahn and the Curtis Orchestra of Jennifer Higdon’s new Violin Concerto. In June, he will conduct The Philadelphia Singers and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia in the keynote concert of Chorus America’s National Conference in Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall featuring music of John Adams and William Walton with Bass-baritone Eric Owens.

During the 2006-2007 season, Mr. Hayes was guest conductor twice with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, leading subscription concerts on short notice. In February 2007 he conducted the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in a Verizon Hall program that included the world premiere of Eric Sessler’s Organ Concerto. In March 2007, Mr. Hayes conducted concert performances of Puccini’s La Rondine with the Curtis Opera Theatre and Handel’s Israel in Egypt with The Philadelphia Singers. He conducted the Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center in April 2007 and returned to the Berkshire Choral Festival in August 2007.

In recent seasons, Mr. Hayes has conducted several non-subscription concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and productions of John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer and Britten’s Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia with the Curtis Opera Theatre. In May 2006, he served as dean of the faculty for Chorus America’s National Choral/Orchestral Conducting Workshop, and conducted The Philadelphia Singers and the Mannes Orchestra in Beethoven’s Missa solemnis in both Alice Tully Hall and Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall.

With The Philadelphia Singers, Mr. Hayes has conducted numerous critically acclaimed performances including: the Philadelphia premieres of Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, Sir Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time and Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims (a work he first conducted with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague), Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Berlioz’s Requiem, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Israel in Egypt and Solomon, all of the major choral works of J. S. Bach, Beethoven’s Mass in C Major and Missa Solemnis, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in c minor. He has conducted world premieres of Laderman’s Brotherly Love, Robert Capanna’s Day and several works written by Jennifer Higdon for The Philadelphia Singers.

Mr. Hayes’s guest conducting engagements in recent seasons have included the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Lancaster (PA) Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the American Repertory Ballet, the Rutgers Orchestra, the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and appearances at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. He has regularly appeared with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the Relâche Ensemble.

A native of the Boston area, Mr. Hayes studied conducting with Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School and with Otto-Werner Mueller at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Mr. Hayes is a member of the Board of Directors of Chorus America (the national service organization for the choral arts) and is chair of both its Conducting Programs Task Force and Professional Chorus Conductors Forum.