Music
Director
Conductor
Barbara Day Turner is founder and music director of the San José Chamber
Orchestra, now in its 18th season. An ardent advocate for new music, Maestra Day
Turner has premiered more than 75 new works just with SJCO, conducted close to
100 operas and musical theater pieces, and has become well known for creative
and engaging programming. She has
conducted recently the Orquesta Sinfónica de Aguascalientes, John Adams’ Nixon
In China for Portland Opera, The King
and I and The Full Monty for American Musical Theatre of San José and Manon
Lescaut and Porgy and Bess for Utah Festival Opera, where she also serves as
Music Administrator. Her background
also includes many years as conductor and artistic administrator with Opera San
José where she conducted four world premieres, including Hotel Eden by Henry Mollicone, West
of Washington Square by Alva
Henderson, The Tale of The Nutcracker
by Craig Bohmler and Phaedra by George
Roumanis, in addition to numerous repertoire pieces. She also conducted, in
Montana and Idaho, the world premiere performances of Alva Henderson’s Nosferatu,
with text by recent NEA chairperson Dana Gioia. She holds a masters degree in
harpsichord performance from San José State University, with advanced studies
with the legendary Fernando Valenti, defining an alter-ego musical life as a
harpsichordist. Other unusual
projects have included conducting Sondheim’s Assassins
for AMTSJ, Weisgall’s Six Characters in
Search of An Author for Opera Festival New Jersey, La Cenerentola with the Rheinsberg Festival (Berlin), the world
premiere of Randall Wong's Household Opera
for puppets in a Victorian toy theater and The Cat and the Fiddle for 42nd Street Moon in San Francisco.
In addition, she has guest conducted for Opera Memphis, Nashville Opera,
West Bay Opera, Rimrock Opera, Taconic Opera, Rogue Opera, Opera Idaho and led
concerts with the Rudolstadt (Germany), Billings (MT), San José (CA),
Fayetteville (AK), Redwood and Diablo Valley Symphonies (CA).
