Joana Carneiro

Joana Carneiro (born Joana Maria Amaro da Costa da Luz Carneiro, Lisbon, 30 September 1976), is a Portuguese conductor. She is the third of nine children of the former Portuguese minister of education Roberto Carneiro, and she is a niece of the Portuguese politician Adelino Amaro da Costa.

As a youth, Carneiro played the viola. In Portugal, Carneiro studied music at the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra in Lisbon, where her teachers included Jean-Marc Burfin. She subsequently earned a master's degree in music at Northwestern University, studying with such instructors as Victor Yampolsky and Mallory Thompson. She continued graduate studies in music for a doctorate at the University of Michigan, where her teachers included Kenneth Kieser. At the University of Michigan, she also served as the conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra and University Philharmonia Orchestra.

Carneiro first gained attention as a finalist in the 2002 Maazel-Vilar Conductor's Competition at Carnegie Hall. That same year, she won the Young Musician’s Foundation's 2002 National Conductor Search. In the USA, she then served as Music Director of the Los Angeles Debut Orchestra from 2002 to 2005. She has worked as an assistant conductor with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She was an American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 2005 to 2008. In Portugal, Carneiro became Principal Guest Conductor of the Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon as of the 2005–2006 season. In the 2006–2007 season, she became principal guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, and held the post through the 2012–2013 season.

In the USA, in January 2009, Carneiro was named the third music director of the Berkeley Symphony, effective with the 2009–2010 season, with an initial contract of 3 years. This is Carneiro's first music directorship, and her first concert in that capacity took place in October 2009. In 2010, Carneiro received the Helen M. Thompson award from the League of American Orchestras.

In September 2013, Carneiro was announced as the next principal conductor of the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, effective 1 January 2014.

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