Acclaimed Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro is Principal Guest Conductor of the Real Filharmonia de Galicia and Artistic Director of the Estágio Gulbenkian para Orquestra, a post she has held since 2013.

Carneiro was Principal Conductor of the Orquestra Sinfonica Portuguesa at Teatro Sao Carlos in Lisbon from 2014 until January 2022. From 2009 to 2018 she was Music Director of Berkeley Symphony, succeeding Kent Nagano as only the third music director in the 40-year history of the orchestra. She was also official guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra from 2006 to 2018.

Carneiro is in high demand for her focus on contemporary music both in the concert hall and on the opera stage. Last season at English National Opera she conducted The Handmaid’s Tale after a highly acclaimed debut in London conducting the world stage premiere of John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary, directed by Peter Sellars. With the Scottish Opera she conducted Nixon in China, and in Lisbon, Rake ́s Progress. Other recent opera performances include A Wonderful Town (Royal Danish Opera), Simone’s La Passion (Ojai Festival), Oedipus Rex (Sydney, Helpmann Award for Best Concert by the Symphony Orchestra), and A Flowering Tree (Vienna, Paris, Chicago, Cincinnati, Gothenburg, and Lisbon).

Carneiro’s guest conducting highlights in recent and future seasons include engagements with prominent orchestras around the world, from BBC Symphony and Philharmonia in London, BBC Scottish, and Scottish Chamber, National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland) to Royal Stockholm, Gothenburg, Finnish Radio, Helsinki Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, Castilla y Leon, and La Venice in Europe. Further afield, she has performed with National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada, Los Angeles Philharmonic in the United States, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Beijing Orchestra in Asia, and Sao Paulo State Symphony in South America.

A native of Lisbon, she began her musical studies as a violist before receiving her conducting degree from the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra in Lisbon, where she studied with Jean-Marc Burfin. She then traveled to the United States, where she received her masters degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University as a student of Victor Yampolsky and Mallory Thompson, and pursued doctoral studies at the University of Michigan, where she studied with Kenneth Kiesler.

She was a finalist of the prestigious 2002 Maazel-Vilar Conductor’s Competition at Carnegie Hall, then in 2003-2004, she worked with Maestros Kurt Masur and Christoph von Dohnanyi and conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra, as one of the three conductors chosen for London’s Allianz Cultural Foundation International Conductors Academy. From 2002 to 2005, she served as Assistant Conductor of the LA Chamber Orchestra and as Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles. From 2005 through 2008, she was an American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she worked closely with Esa-Pekka Salonen and led several performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl.

Carneiro is the 2010 recipient of the Helen M. Thompson Award, conferred by the League of American Orchestras to recognize and honour music directors of exceptional promise. In 2004, Carneiro was decorated by the President of the Portuguese Republic, Mr. Jorge Sampaio, with the Commendation of the Order of the Infante Dom Henrique.

Joshua Roman is a cellist, accomplished composer, and curator whose performances embrace musical styles from Bach to Radiohead. Before setting off on his unique path as a soloist, Roman was the Seattle Symphony’s principal cellist—a job he began at just 22 years of age and left only two years later. He has since become renowned for his genre-bending repertoire and wide-ranging collaborations. Roman was named a TED Senior Fellow in 2015. His live performance of the complete Six Suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach on TED’s Facebook Page garnered nearly one million live viewers, with millions more for his Main Stage TED Talks/Performances, including an improvisational performance with Tony-winner/MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Bill T. Jones and East African vocalist Somi.

A Gramophone review of his 2017 recording of Aaron Jay Kernis’s Cello Concerto (written for Roman) proclaimed that "Roman's extraordinary performance combines the expressive control of Casals with the creative individuality and virtuoso flair of Hendrix himself." Recent highlights include performing standard and new concertos with the Colorado, Detroit, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, and San Francisco Symphonies. In addition to his other orchestral appearances Roman has collaborated with the JACK, St. Lawrence, and Verona Quartets and brings the same fresh approach to chamber music projects to his own series, Town Music at Town Hall Seattle.

Roman’s adventurous spirit has led to collaborations with artists outside the music community, including creating “On Grace” with Tony Award-nominated actor Anna Deavere Smith. His compositions are inspired by sources such as the poetry of Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy K. Smith, and the musicians he writes for, such as the JACK Quartet, violinist Vadim Gluzman, and conductor David Danzmayr. Roman’s endeavors outside the concert hall have taken him to Uganda with his violin-playing siblings, where they played chamber music in schools, HIV/AIDS centers and displacement camps.