Victoria Bond

Victoria Bond
Victoria Bond

A major force in 21st century concert music, Victoria Bond leads a dual career as composer and conductor. Her compositions have been praised by the New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding,” and her conducting has been called “impassioned” by the Wall Street Journal and “full of energy and fervor” by the New York Times.

Bond has been commissioned by American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Houston and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, Cleveland and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestras, Women’s Philharmonic and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her compositions have been performed by the Dallas Symphony, New York City Opera, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and members of the New York Philharmonic, among others. She was recently honored with the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Walter Hinrichsen Award.

Bond has served as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony, guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and China, and was profiled in the Wall Street Journal, NBC’s Today Show, People Magazine and The New York Times. The first woman awarded a doctorate in conducting from The Juilliard School, Bond has served as Music Director of the New Amsterdam and Roanoke Symphony Orchestras and Artistic Director of Opera Roanoke and the Harrisburg Opera, Music Adviser of the Wuhan Symphony in China and Principal Guest Conductor of Chamber Opera Chicago.

Scenes from Bond’s opera Mrs. President were performed by the New York City Opera as part of their VOX series and will be produced by Anchorage Opera in 2012. The Southampton Press praised the opera, saying “It is music that overflows with lyricism and passion…there is no mistaking Ms. Bond for anything other than a 21st century American composer, but Puccini would have been thrilled to write some of these arias.” Her Hanukkah opera Miracle, commissioned by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, was performed in December 2011. In addition, she has composed three other operas, seven ballets, two piano concertos and numerous orchestral, chamber, choral and keyboard works.

Currently Principal Guest Conductor of Chamber Opera Chicago, Ms. Bond was Music Director of the Harrisburg Opera (1997-2002), Artistic Director of Opera Roanoke (1986-95) and the Bel Canto Opera Company (1978-88), and Music Director of the New Amsterdam and Roanoke Symphony Orchestras, the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony and the Empire State Youth Orchestra. She was Woman of the Year in Virginia (1990-91). Ms. Bond is the founder of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival which she produces each spring at Symphony Space in New York. She is a frequent pre-concert lecturer for the New York Philharmonic. Victoria Bond lives in New York City with her husband, attorney Stephan Peskin.