Press Room

Sep 15, 2021

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—The San Francisco Symphony announces four additions to its conducting staff ahead of the 2021–22 season, appointing Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser as the San Francisco Symphony’s Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education and welcoming Kyle Dickson, Molly Turner, and Ross Jamie Collins, who are currently Salonen Fellows in the Colburn School Conservatory of Music’s Negaunee Conducting Program.

During the first season of his three-year appointment as Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser will conduct the San Francisco Symphony in a variety of concerts, including Music for Families, Adventures in Music, Concerts for Kids, Deck the Hall and Deck the Hall Community Day, and Holiday Soul, as well as working with the Symphony’s Education department to develop a new educational video project that will be announced at a later date. This builds on several years of Bartholomew-Poyser’s engagements and collaborations with the San Francisco Symphony, which include curating and hosting the CURRENTS Explore and Create video series and conducting a variety of Education, SoundBox, and holiday concerts. Bartholomew-Poyser comments, “I am thrilled to be appointed Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education. My past years of engagement with the San Francisco Symphony are filled with memories of terrific music making and fantastic, challenging programs. Together, we've created unforgettable musical experiences for our Bay Area audience and this appointment demonstrates our commitment to creating more. I am very much looking forward to being back in the Bay Area, making music, making memories. See you soon.”

Kyle Dickson, Molly Turner, and Ross Jamie Collins have been selected by Esa-Pekka Salonen to join the conducting staff of the San Francisco Symphony in an extension of their work as Salonen Fellows in the Colburn School Conservatory of Music’s Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen joined the Colburn School faculty in 2018 to lead and develop the Negaunee Conducting Program, a course of study in the school’s Conservatory of Music for a small, select group of aspiring young conductors. The Salonen Fellows develop their craft and nurture their talent through personal mentorship from Esa-Pekka Salonen, gaining significant real-world podium experience on and off campus to prepare them for professional careers. As part of their fellowship roles, they will serve as an assistant conductor to Salonen for each of his programs conducting the San Francisco Symphony during the 2021–22 season. The conducting program is made possible by the Negaunee Foundation, created in 1987 to celebrate and support the arts and cultural institutions.

About the Conductors
A passionate communicator, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser brings clarity and meaning to the concert hall, fostering deep connections between audiences and performers. Bartholomew-Poyser concurrently holds two conducting posts: Barrett Principal Education Conductor and Community Ambassador of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Artist in Residence and Community Ambassador of Symphony Nova Scotia. He served as Assistant Conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and Associate Conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Bartholomew-Poyser has performed with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Chicago Philharmonic; has enjoyed an increasing partnership with the San Francisco Symphony over six seasons; and was cover conductor with the Washington National Opera in 2020.

In the 2021–22 season Bartholomew-Poyser will debut with the Carnegie Hall Link-Up Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Regina Symphony Orchestra, and the Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra. Host of Canadian Broadcasting Company’s (CBC) nationally broadcast weekly radio show Centre Stage, he also serves on the Boards of both Orchestras Canada and The Conductor’s Retreat at Medomak, headquartered in Michigan. He is the subject of a multi award-winning CBC documentary Disruptor Conductor, focusing on his efforts to extend the boundaries of the orchestral music world through concerts for Neurodiverse, Prison, African Diaspora, and LGBTQ2S+ populations. 

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser earned his Bachelor in Music Performance and Education from the University of Calgary, and his Master of Philosophy in Performance from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. Learn more about Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser.

American conductor Kyle Dickson is quickly building a reputation as an innovative and compelling presence on the podium. He is Assistant Conductor of the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, and he previously served as Music Director of Chicago’s South Loop Symphony. Dickson was selected as a Conducting Fellow at the 2021 National Orchestral Institute’s Conducting Academy with Marin Alsop and James Ross and from 2019 to 2021 was a Project Inclusion Freeman Conducting Fellow with Chicago Sinfonietta under the mentorship of Music Director Mei-Ann Chen. Next season, Dickson will serve as Assistant Conductor of Spoleto Festival USA for the world premiere of Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’ opera, Omar.

Dickson works regularly with youth ensembles and has given numerous masterclasses and webinars for many arts programs including the Chicago Youth Symphony Ensembles and Ravinia’s El Sistema program. Beginning his career as a violinist, Dickson was a prizewinner at the 2010 NANM National Concerto Competition and has held residencies at Indiana University-South Bend and the United World College of South East Asia as a chamber musician. In 2021, Dickson earned his master’s degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University studying with Victor Yampolsky. He also received degrees in violin performance from Michigan State University (BM) and DePaul University (MM). His principal violin teachers included Walter Verdehr, Laura Roelofs, and Olga Kaler. Learn more about Kyle J. Dickson.

Molly Turner conducts, composes, and plays music. Recently, she was featured conducting the Dallas Opera Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, Juilliard Lab Orchestra, and Rice Campanile Orchestra. She was selected as one of six participants for the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors. She has also conducted the Bay Area Youth Symphony (Houston, TX) and the Eastern Festival Orchestra (Greensboro, NC). She regularly serves as a cover conductor for the Juilliard Orchestra and she has covered for Jeffrey Milarsky, Nicholas McGegan, Paul Watkins, and David Robertson. With a strong interest in contemporary art, she was the artistic director for New Art / New Music at the Moody Center for the Arts (Houston, TX) in 2018–19.

Turner recently graduated from The Juilliard School where she studied with David Robertson. She received her bachelor’s in music composition at Rice University cum laude. In her own music, she is interested in the balance between strictly dictated elements and more aleatoric notation. A violinist and violist herself, she finds string instruments endlessly fascinating. Improvisation is a core part of her writing process. A strong advocate for contemporary music, she collaborated with Rice’s “Hear & Now” ensemble as a composer, violist, and conductor. She has extensive experience premiering works of her colleagues and her own music. In her free time, she enjoys biking, playing Ultimate Frisbee, and reading. Learn more about Molly Turner.

Ross Jamie Collins is a Finnish-British conductor and is a part of the inaugural class of Salonen Fellows in the Negaunee Conducting Program at the Colburn School. Previously a student of Jorma Panula at the Panula Academy in Finland, Collins began his studies with Esa-Pekka Salonen at Colburn in fall 2019. In 2018 he was awarded Third Prize in the VII International Jorma Panula Conducting Competition, and in 2019 he made his debuts with the South Denmark Philharmonic and the Kirkkonummi Chamber Orchestra. Born in 2001 in Nottingham, United Kingdom, Collins has been living in Helsinki, Finland since 2008 where he began conducting studies at the age of fourteen with Klaus Mäkelä. In 2017 he founded his own orchestra, named Symphony Orchestra ROSSO, and conducted a full symphony concert at the age of fifteen.

In the 2021–22 concert season, Collins will make his conducting debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra, alongside violinist Randall Goosby in music of Felix Mendelssohn, Carl Nielsen, and Jean Sibelius. He will also make his debut with the Turku Philharmonic, Finland’s oldest orchestra, where he will lead them alongside the classic British animated film The Snowman. Supported by a scholarship from The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Collins has participated in numerous international conducting masterclasses and has had experience conducting the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Vaasa City Orchestra, Sinfonietta Cracovia, MAV Symphony Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra, Lappeenranta City Orchestra, St. Michel Strings, The Camerata Antonio Sole, and has served as assistant conductor of the Lauttasaari Symphony Orchestra.

As a student of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ross Jamie Collins has traveled and assisted him at the Philharmonia, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Houston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony. He has also had the opportunity to work closely alongside Edo de Waart, James Conlon, Ludovic Morlot, Rossen Milanov, Peter Oundjian, and Ray Chen, and has conducted both the Colburn Orchestra and Academy Virtuosi. Learn more about Ross Jamie Collins.

[To view and download the full PDF version of this press release, click on DOWNLOAD AS A PDF]