Naomi Woo: NYOC’s Leader Says Authenticity is the Key

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“One of the most exciting things about being a musician is the necessity of life-long learning,” Naomi Woo says over a video call. These are not just aspirational words. Woo practises what she preaches. As an emerging music director and conductor, she continues to be both a student and a teacher.

Next year, Woo will continue to nurture young talent in her role as Music Director for the National Youth Orchestra for a second year, after leading them in their successful Horizons tour across Canada in the summer of 2024.

Presently, Woo is being mentored by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the renowned Music Director of The Metropolitan Opera, Artistic and Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as Music Director and Principal Conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. In September, she was in Philadelphia, where she is working as Assistant Conductor with Nézet-Séguin as he prepares the Philadelphia Orchestra for their first concert of the 2024-25 season.

Woo has thought a lot about what makes a great orchestra. “Trust and confidence are necessary,” she says. This is something that she learned from Nézet-Séguin and imparted to the musicians of the National Youth Orchestra. “(Trust and confidence) are the same word in French. Confiance.” Woo contends that trust—in oneself, one’s collaborators, and the audience—is a necessary element required to make great music. “You cannot truly trust other people if you do not have confidence in yourself,” Woo says.

For Woo, the confidence required to conduct an orchestra is paradoxical. “It takes a special combination of humility and confidence to do this.” After all, she concedes, “most of the people on the stage have played (the piece) more than I have … Having that humility requires self-confidence, which doesn’t mean the confidence to tell other people what to do, but confidence in knowing who you are and what you value. This allows you to be humble.” This lesson is one she also learned from Nézet-Séguin. “The key is to be authentically yourself. That’s what he demonstrates on the podium.”

From the beginning of her life-long journey as a musician, Woo has consistently valued making music with others. Like many children, Woo started with piano lessons, a pedagogical approach that usually involves learning to make music alone. But under the tutelage of her piano teacher, Diana Mar, Woo was encouraged to play chamber music, which meant she played duets and trios. “What I was encountering was the special magic of making music with others. That was an important part of my music education.”

Her journey as a collaborative musician continued when she won a piano competition at age 12, playing with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. This was also the first time she played under the baton of a female conductor, Tania Miller—an experience which inspired her to become a conductor herself. Seeing a woman conductor eliminated what Woo calls one of the “imaginative hurdles” that can be an obstacle to personal achievement.

With a passion for making music with others, she went on to play and conduct at the Yale School of Music, where she received a master’s degree in Piano Performance, and later at Cambridge University, where she received a doctorate in musicology. In her final years at Cambridge, she became the conducting scholar of the Cambridge University Music Society, which connected her with Sian Edwards, a teacher of conducting in London.

With doctorate in hand and experience conducting prestigious amateur ensembles, Woo successfully applied to be the Assistant Conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. “They were so willing to see and help me grow,” says Woo. “There is not really a good way to practise (conducting). You can study the score all you want, but the way to learn is by actually doing it.” With an incredible team of mentors, including Music Director Daniel Raiskin and Associate Conductor Julian Pellicano, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra allowed her to do that.

Alongside her time in Winnipeg, Woo continued to be an educator. She taught young musicians as the Music Director of both the University of Manitoba Orchestra and Sistema Winnipeg, a program that brings music to children as young as 7.

Following her four-year WSO tenure, Woo has become Artistic Partner with Orchestre Métropolitain for the 2023-24 season and Assistant Conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra for 2024-25, all in addition to her work with the NYO.

With a new crop of young musicians joining the NYO this coming year, Woo once again steps into the role of educator, passing along what she has learned on her musical journey. “As an educator and a leader, my job as a conductor is to allow the musicians to be the best they can possibly be. The best conductors I observe are able to somehow support instrumentalists to play even better than they thought they could. That’s the magic!”