Maestro José-Luis Novo is currently in his fifth season as Music Director and Conductor of the ASO, and his seventh season as Music Director and Conductor of the Binghamton Philharmonic (New York).  Prior to these appointments, he served as Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of both Music Director Emeritus Jesús López-Cobos and Music Director Paavo Järvi, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under the late Erich Kunzel.

Most recently Mr. Novo made an impressive Kimmel Center debut in Philadelphia conducting the Curtis Institute Orchestra in a last minute replacement for an ailing Maestro Otto Werner Mueller.  Prior guest conducting engagements have included, among others, appearances with the Baltimore Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Syracuse, Modesto, Tulsa, Windsor, Stamford, and Tallahassee Symphonies; the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra; the Cleveland and Abilene Philharmonics; the Tenerife, Principado de Asturias, and Castilla y León Symphony Orchestras; the City of Granada Orchestra; the Andrés Segovia Chamber Orchestra at the National Auditorium in Madrid, the Vallés Symphony Orchestra at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona, and the Echternach Festival Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and on tour in Luxembourg and Germany.

A committed advocate of contemporary music, Maestro Novo has lead more than a dozen world premieres of commissioned compositions.  In the operatic field, he made his debut conducting a production of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride in collaboration with Maestro Julius Rudel and subsequently has conducted productions of Britten’s Albert Herring, Menotti’s Old Maid and the Thief, and Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea.

While maintaining a promising professional conducting career, Mr. Novo has also developed a reputation as a keen educator of young musicians.  He has held the positions of Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Miami University Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra, and Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain and the Yale Symphony Orchestra.  Since 1999 he has been the Resident Conductor at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina.  In addition, he has conducted many noteworthy college and youth orchestras.  Among these are the Curtis Institute Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, the University of Maryland Symphony, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and the Portuguesa State Youth Orchestra of the Venezuelan El Sistema.  In the summer of 1998 he took the National Youth Orchestra of Spain on a concert tour of Spain and Portugal, with performances at the Teatro Real in Madrid and the World Exposition in Lisbon.

                As a violinist, Mr. Novo has appeared in concerts and recitals in Europe and in the United States and has made recordings for the Spanish and Norwegian National Radios.  He is a founding member of several important ensembles in which he has held leading positions: as concertmaster and soloist with the Youth Chamber Orchestra of Spain, as principal second violin of the New Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and as concertmaster of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain.

                José-Luis Novo began his musical studies in his hometown of Valladolid, obtaining the degree of Profesor Superior de Violín, with honors in solfege, harmony, and violin at the conservatory.  A scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Culture allowed him to continue his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, where he earned a First Prize in violin.  In 1988, he came to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar, obtaining both Master of Music and Master of Musical Arts degrees from Yale University, where he was also bestowed the Frances G. Wickes Award and the Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize.  In 1992, the Spanish foundation La Caixa awarded him a fellowship to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he completed a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting.  He concluded his conducting studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  His conducting teachers have included Gerhard Samuel, Carl Topilow, Louis Lane, Edmon Colomer, James Ross, and Charles Bruck (at the Pierre Monteux School in Maine).  In addition, Mr. Novo has attended seminars and master classes with Günther Herbig, Lorin Maazel, Cristoph von Dohnänyi, Leonard Slatkin, Larry Rachleff, Daniel Lewis, Victor Yampolsky, and Christopher Wilkins.