George Daugherty

Conductor GEORGE DAUGHERTY is one of the classical music world’s most diverse artists. In addition to his 25-year conducting career which has included appearances with the world’s leading orchestras, ballet companies, opera houses, and concert artists, Daugherty is also an Emmy- winning and 5-time Emmy-nominated creator, whose professional profile includes major credits as a director, writer, and producer for television, film, innovative and unique concerts, and live theater.
 
His recent and current conducting engagements include multiple performances with the Cleveland Orchestra at both Severence Hall and The Blossom Festival, his 13th return engagement with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, his 7th engagement with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and his 14th engagement with the National Symphony. In the 2009/10 season, he makes his debuts with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Calgary Symphony, and Ireland’s RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, and returns to the Milwaukee Symphony, the Blossom Festival Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House (where he has been a frequent guest conductor since 1995.) He is a frequent guest conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, with whom he just performed at Davies Symphony Hall, and for whom he has conducted dozens of times over the past 15 years.
 
Daugherty has also been a frequent conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, with whom he first made his debut in Royal Festival Hall, and conducted a 15-city U.S. and Canadian concert tour with the orchestra and guest artists Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Charlotte Church, dancers of the Royal Ballet, and the Westminster Choir and Bell Ringers. He founded London’s Sinfonia Britannia in 2005, of which he is Music Director.
 
Daugherty has also conducted for scores of major American and international symphony orchestras, ballet companies, and opera houses, including numerous performances with the Houston Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the American Ballet Theatre, the Teatro Regio Emilia di Torino, the Munich State Opera Ballet, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Louisville Orchestra, the Moscow State Symphony, the Kremlin Palace Orchestra, the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony, the Melbourne Symphony, the Adelaide Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonic, the RCA Symphony Orchestra, the Saddlers Wells Royal Ballet, Mexico City’s Bellas Artes Opera House, the Montreal Symphony, the Winnipeg Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the New Orleans Symphony, the Venezuela Symphony, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, the Florida West Coast Symphony, the Delaware Symphony, the Tucson Symphony, and major Italian opera houses in Rome, Florence, Turin, and Regio Emilia. He has been Music Director of the Louisville Ballet, Ballet Chicago, and the Chicago City Ballet.
 
Daugherty has created several major music-based productions for the ABC Television Network project, including a primetime animation-and-live action production of Prokofiev’s Peter and The Wolf, which he created, co-wrote, conducted, and directed, and for which he won an Emmy, as well as numerous other major awards (including a Writers Guild of America Award nomination, and the top prizes of The Chicago, New York, and Houston International Film Festivals.)
 
He also collaborated with The Joy Luck Club author Amy Tan on the Emmy-winning television series adaptation of her celebrated children’s book, Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat for PBS and Sesame Workshop. Daugherty executive produced the 80 episodes, and also wrote 40 of the animated tales. Daugherty also received an Emmy nomination for Rhythm & Jam, his ABC television network of specials that taught the basics of music to a teenage audience.
 
In 1990, Daugherty created, directed, and conducted the hit Broadway musical Bugs Bunny On Broadway, a live-orchestra-and-film stage production which sold-out its extended run at New York’s Gershwin Theatre on Broadway, and has since played to critical acclaim and sold-out houses all over the world over the past 20 years. The Bugs Bunny symphonic concert continues as Daugherty and producing-partner David Lik Wong launch this new version, Bugs Bunny At The Symphony, in 2010.
 
Daugherty was born and raised in Pendleton, Indiana, and attended Pendleton Heights High School, where an incredibly inspiring group of teachers gave him the education which would propel him into his career. He then studied at Indiana University, Butler University Jordan College of Music, and The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He recently received the biannual Indiana Governor’s Arts Award from the state of his birth, in recognition for his artistic contributions not only in Indiana, but also throughout the rest of the country. In receiving the award, Daugherty joined an exclusive list of previous Hoosier honorees, including composers Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael, conductors Raymond Lepard and John Nelson, violinists Joshua Bell and Josef Gingold, cellist Janos Starker, architect Michael Graves, designer Bill Blass, and novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. In 2005, he was also named a Sagamore of The Wabash by the late Indiana Governor Frank O’Bannon, the highest award that can be bestowed upon a performing artist from the state governor.
 
In 2005, Daugherty was also named a Library Laureate of The San Francisco Public Library for his contributions to children’s books, reading, and literature, joining a distinguished list of authors who have been awarded the title. This award was especially meaningful to Daugherty, since his great-great-great-great-grandfather was the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.