Kalena Bovell, guest conductor

With her distinctive voice as a maestra, speaker, and poet, Panamanian-American conductor Kalena Bovell has been hailed by Channel 3 News (Connecticut) as "one of the brightest stars in classical music." Following her 2024 Sphinx Medal of Excellence and tenure as a Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship Award Recipient, Bovell enters the 2026–27 season with major debuts including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Opera Orlando, where she will conduct her first traditional opera, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and the Texas All-State Orchestra. Additional debuts include the Florida All-State Orchestra and the Paducah Symphony Orchestra. She also returns to the San Diego Symphony for a second season as Conducting Fellow.

Recent performance highlights include appearances with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, and Grant Park Music Festival; leading the Sphinx Connect: Concerto Competition Concert; and guest conducting the New World Symphony's I Dream a World Festival. She also returned to the Chineke! Orchestra for its 10th anniversary season. Her work with Chineke! at the BBC Proms led to her featured appearance on the ensemble's 2022 Coleridge-Taylor album, praised by The Financial Times for "overflowing with descriptive imagination." Reviewing her Proms performance, ArtsDesk urged, "Never let her go."

From 2019 to 2023, Bovell served as Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and Conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony, leading performances ranging from the orchestra's collaboration with Leslie Odom Jr. to family and education concerts. She previously served as Music Director of the Civic Orchestra of New Haven, where she expanded the orchestra's size, repertoire, and artistic profile. During the 2025–26 season, she also served as Music Director Fellow of the Spokane Symphony. Committed to developing the next generation of musicians, she has twice returned as a conductor at the YOLA National Festival and has led residencies at institutions including the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of Redlands, and Oklahoma City University.

A Los Angeles native, Bovell earned her Master of Music and Graduate Professional Diploma in Orchestral Conducting from The Hartt School and a Bachelor of Music Education from Chapman University's College of the Performing Arts, which named her a Distinguished Alumna in 2021. Her path into classical music began at age 11. Without access to private instruction, she did not begin formal violin lessons until she was 18. She worked six jobs to fund her conducting education, a story she continues to share with audiences across North America as an advocate for musicians from nontraditional backgrounds. Also an accomplished poet, Bovell's original poem, Tethered Voices, was performed by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra and set to music by James Lee III. She lives in Philadelphia, where she enjoys the city's vibrant arts scene, cooking, writing, weight training, and perfecting homemade pizza.