Spain’s native, JOSÉ-LUIS NOVO is currently artistic director and conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra (ASO) in Maryland and from 2003 to 2016 he held an impressive thirteen-year tenure as Music Director and Conductor of the Binghamton Philharmonic. Prior to these appointments, he served as Assistant Conductor of the ...

Spain’s native, JOSÉ-LUIS NOVO is currently artistic director and conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra (ASO) in Maryland and from 2003 to 2016 he held an impressive thirteen-year tenure as Music Director and Conductor of the Binghamton Philharmonic. Prior to these appointments, he served as Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under both former Music Director Paavo Järvi and the late Music Director Emeritus Jesús López-Cobos, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under the late Erich Kunzel. He has been on the conducting faculty at the Eastern Music Festival since 1999.

Highlights of Novo’s tenure with the ASO include numerous appearances at the Music Center at Strathmore with violinists James Ehnes, Anne Akiko Meyers, NoahBendix-Balgley, Chee-Yun, Leticia Moreno and Esther Yoo; pianists Olga Kern, Jon Nakamatsu, Brian Ganz and Awadagin Pratt; cellists Steven Isserlis and the late Lynn Harrell; guitarist Manuel Barrueco; pipa virtuoso Wu Man and the Naval Academy Glee Club. Also remarkable are a 2012 return appearance at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, national broadcasts on NPR’s Performance Today, debut TV broadcasts on Washington’s WETA Metro PBS, the launching of the ASO’s award-winning streaming platform Symphony+, the creation of the Annapolis Symphony Academy and the ASO’s first commercial CD commemorating the 300th anniversary of the signing of the City of Annapolis’ Royal Charter. In July of 2022, Maestro Novo and the ASO stunned audiences on both sides of the Atlantic in a debut international tour to Spain with guitar virtuoso Pepe Romero as guest soloist.

Recent and upcoming guest conducting engagements include debut appearances with the Rochester Philharmonic, the Austin, Grand Rapids, Hilton Head, Palm Beach, Alexandria and South Bend Symphony Orchestras, and return appearances with the Baltimore Symphony, the Fresno Philharmonic, Symphoria, and a Kimmel Center debut in Philadelphia conducting the Curtis Institute Orchestra. After a successful debut with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO) for the Thailand International Composition Festival, Maestro Novo has been invited back regularly to guest conduct the TPO on several occasions. Other guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the Symphony San José; the Minnesota Orchestra; the Syracuse, Modesto, Windsor, Stamford, Tulsa, and Tallahassee Symphonies; the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra; the Cleveland and Abilene Philharmonics, and most of the major Spanish orchestras.

Novo has also fostered a reputation as a keen educator of young musicians. He has held conducting positions with the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, Miami University Symphony Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Spain and the Yale Symphony Orchestra, and from 2017 to 2019 he was Interim Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Maryland School of Music, College Park. In addition, he has conducted many noteworthy college and youth orchestras such as the Curtis Institute Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra, and the Portuguesa State Youth Orchestra of the Venezuelan El Sistema. More recently and under the auspices of the Annapolis Symphony Academy, he presided over the debut of its Orion Youth Orchestra, conducting the inaugural concert in June 2022.

Novo was featured in the League of American Orchestra’s Symphony magazine in “Podium Powers,” an article about emerging Hispanic conductors in the United States. He holds music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale University and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, and is the recipient of a 2010 Annie Award in Performing Arts from the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, a 2008 American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Adventurous Programming Award, and a 2005 Broome County Arts Council Heart of the Arts Award.

Pianist Aaron Wunsch enjoys a multifaceted career as a performer, presenter, and educator. He has performed on concert stages throughout the US, Europe and Asia, including in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Duke’s Hall in London, at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland ...

Pianist Aaron Wunsch enjoys a multifaceted career as a performer, presenter, and educator. He has performed on concert stages throughout the US, Europe and Asia, including in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Duke’s Hall in London, at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and as soloist with symphonies in the US and China. Lauded for his “masterful” chamber music performances (Hartford Courant), he has appeared at the Norfolk, Bowdoin, Sarasota, Great Lakes and Yellow Barn chamber music festivals, collaborating in performance with cellist Lynn Harrell, clarinetists Charles Neidich and Anthony McGill, violinists Miranda Cuckson and Jennifer Koh, and the Miró and Parker Quartets, among others. He has worked closely with many composers, including Thomas Adès, Nico Muhly, and Kaija Saariaho and has performed new works by Saariaho and John Adams during Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music. His performances have frequently been heard nationally on Performance Today.

He studied at Yale University (B.A., cum laude), the Mozarteum in Salzburg (Fulbright Fellowship) and at the Juilliard School (M.M. and D.M.A.). He was formerly Assistant Professor of Piano at William Paterson University and is currently the Director of Keyboard Studies and Piano Curriculum at Juilliard, where he teaches piano literature, graduate studies, chamber music, and directs Juilliard PianoScope, the Piano Department’s performance series. He gives piano master classes and lectures at conservatories and universities in the U. S., Europe, and Asia, and he was 2010 Visiting Professor at Shanghai Normal University. His awards for written work in musicology include the Henry Hart Rice Prize and the Richard F. French Prize. His principal teachers in piano included Peter Frankl, Karlheinz Kämmerling, and Robert McDonald, and he also worked with Andras Schiff, Jerome Lowenthal, and Claude Frank; his history and theory studies were with Allen Forte, Robert Morgan, L. Michael Griffel, and Maynard Solomon.

He is Artistic Director of both the acclaimed Music Mondays concert series in New York City and Co-Artistic Director of the Skaneateles Festival, in the Finger Lakes.

New York-based Peruvian American, Giancarlo Llerena, is a pianist, collaborator, teaching artist, and aspiring leader in the arts. An avid performer, he has appeared on many prestigious stages across the US and Europe, such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kravis Center, the New World Center, Teatro Angelo ...

New York-based Peruvian American, Giancarlo Llerena, is a pianist, collaborator, teaching artist, and aspiring leader in the arts. An avid performer, he has appeared on many prestigious stages across the US and Europe, such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kravis Center, the New World Center, Teatro Angelo Mariani, Église Saint Dominique, and more. Most recently, he has appeared in performance twice with violinist Joshua Bell, as well as soprano Larisa Martinez for the Venezuelan American Endowment for the Arts Gala. In the 2024-2025 season, he also had the privilege of performing alongside “You Raise Me Up” singer, Josh Groban.

Giancarlo has been awarded top prizes in several competitions, including the National Youngarts Competition, and has also attended the Tanglewood Institute and the Aspen Music Festival on full scholarship. He was recently invited as a 2025 Fellowship Pianist for Classic Lyric Arts, where he coached and performed with singers across Italy and France. Throughout his journey, he has had the privilege of being mentored by many esteemed musicians, such as Hilary Hahn, Jessie Montgomery, Brian Zeger, Isabel Leonard, Rohan de Silva, Itzhak Perlman, David Finckel, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and others.

Having immense passions for music pedagogy and bringing art to diverse communities, Giancarlo has been dedicated to such efforts through the Gluck Community Service Fellowship, the Morse Teaching Artist Fellowship, and the Music Advancement Program Teaching Fellowship at The Juilliard School. This has also led to his invitation as a teaching artist and collaborative pianist with the educational non-profit, Harmony Program.

Giancarlo is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Collaborative Piano at Juilliard as a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship, under the tutelage of Lydia Brown. He also received his Bachelor’s degree there in Piano Performance with Academic Honors, having studied with Veda Kaplinsky and Julian Martin. Giancarlo is a proud Steinway & Sons Educational Partner.