Victoria Bond leads a multifaceted career as composer, conductor, lecturer, and artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts. Her compositions have been praised by the New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding,” and her conducting as “impassioned” by the Wall Street Journal. She has composed eight operas, including Clara, based on the life of composer and pianist Clara Schumann, which premiered at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival in Baden-Baden; six ballets; two piano concertos; and orchestral, chamber, choral and keyboard compositions. She has been commissioned by ensembles from New York to Shanghai, and her compositions performed around the world.
Principal guest conductor of Chamber Opera, Chicago, Victoria was the first woman awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting at the Julliard School and was selected by Andre Previn for the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor position with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Among many other posts, she has served as assistant conductor of New York City Opera under Beverly Sills, and as principal guest conductor for Ray Charles in concerts throughout the world, including performances and recording of Quincy Jones’ Black Requiem.
Inspired by Pierre Boulez’s series, “Perspective Encounters,” Victoria founded the annual Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival in 1998, which has presented and premiered works by over 200 composers, including Philip Glass, William Bolcom, Joan Tower, David Del Tredici, and Bond herself.
In addition, Victoria is a frequent lecturer for the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and regularly gave pre-performance lectures at New York Philharmonic concerts. She has taught at the Julliard School, New York University, Nyack College, and at the annual Conductor’s Institute of South Carolina.
Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock: A Celebration in Music