David Amado, artistic director Designate
In June 2023, after leading the Delaware Symphony Orchestra for 20 seasons as Music Director, David Amado was named the first Music Director Laureate in the DSO’s 118-year history. Since July 2016, he has also served a second music directorship for the Atlantic Classical Orchestra in Florida.
As a guest conductor, Amado has led numerous prominent orchestras. In addition to the St. Louis Symphony, where he served as associate conductor from 2001 to 2004, he has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, and the Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, National, New World, and Toronto symphonies. Recent engagements have included the Mobile, New Bedford, New Haven and Toronto symphony orchestras and California’s Symphony Silicon Valley. In June of 2019, he made his debut at the Mostly Modern Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York. In addition to celebrating his 20th anniversary with the Delaware Symphony 2022-23 highlights include guest conducting engagements with the Oregon Mozart Players, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, and Park University’s International Center for Music.
Amado has been praised by the media, audiences, and fellow musicians for his deep musical insight and visceral energy. These qualities have allowed him to reinvigorate the Delaware Symphony, which has become a premier regional orchestra during his tenure. In 2010 the DSO released a critically acclaimed CD on the Telarc label, partnering with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet in concertos by Joaquín Rodrigo and Sergio Assad; the recording debuted at number 11 on the Billboard charts and earned a Latin Grammy nomination. April of 2018 saw the release of a NAXOS recording featuring the DSO and Brasil Guitar Duo under Amado’s direction in concerti by Paulo Bellinati and Leo Brouwer.
He began his musical training in piano, studying in The Juilliard School’s pre-college and college divisions before going on to Indiana University, where he received a master's degree in instrumental conducting. Returning to New York, he pursued further conducting studies at Juilliard with Otto-Werner Mueller. His first professional conducting post, an apprenticeship with the Oregon Symphony, was followed by a six-year tenure with the St. Louis Symphony, where he served as both a staff conductor at the orchestra and music director of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra.
Juan Vázquez, Assistant Conductor
Juan was born in La Piedad, Michoacán, in Mexico. He began to study piano in early ages with Saúl Heredia, in his hometown. He later moved to the city of Morelia, and continued his musical education in “Las Rosas” Conservatory (Conservatorio de las Rosas), where he began to study composition with Jorge David García.
He has a bachelor’s degree in law, obtained in 2016 at the Escuela Libre de Derecho, in Mexico City.
After obtaining that degree, he continued to study composition with Antonieta Lozano and Andrea Chamizo in the Musical Studies and Research Center (Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Música), also in Mexico City. In 2020 he returned to Morelia, and founded the Tzintzuni’s Philharmonic Orchestra.
He worked as the principal conductor of this ensemble for almost four years. He also worked as the President of the board of directors of the Cultural Center “Allende 637”, a place dedicated to the promotion of arts, humanities and culture. He has been invited as a guest conductor for the Michoacan’s Symphony Orchestra, the Sonora’s Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of the State of Zacatecas, in the Camerata of the City of Zacatecas, the Camerata Oaxaca, and for the Mexico City Chamber Orchestra.
In 2021, he won the first price of the “Arturo Márquez” National Contest of Composition for Chamber Orchestra. His music has been played by different ensembles and in diverse festivals in his country, as well as in the FESTMUS festival in Castellon, Spain and in the MUSICMEXICO Symposium 2024, at El Paso, Texas. He is now starting a master program in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Oregon.
Kelly Kuo, Artistic Director Emeritus
Praised by the Cincinnati Enquirer as “a leader of exceptional musical gifts, who has a clear technique on the podium and an impressive rapport with audiences,” Maestro Kelly Kuo brings a dynamic versatility and nuance to a diverse repertoire, which includes nearly 100 operas and an expansive symphonic repertoire as well.
His engagements have included productions with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Minnesota Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Merola Opera Program, Kentucky Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Opera Columbus, and the Brevard Music Center, and concerts withthe Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Sunriver Music Festival, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Olympia Symphony Orchestra, and Ballet Fantastique.
In 2008, Maestro Kuo became the first conductor of Asian descent to lead a performance at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, making his company debut with Porgy and Bess. He has since returned to lead the Chicago premiere of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird and performances featuring artists of the Ryan Opera Center. Upcoming engagements include debuts with Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Knoxville Opera and the Walla Walla Symphony.
An Oregon native and recipient of a Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistant Award, Kuo continues to concertize as a keyboardist as the only pianist to have studied with two pupils of the Russian virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz.