David Hayes

Staff Conductor
Conductor / Performance

David Hayes is music director of NYChoral (New York Choral Society) and a professor at Mannes College of Music at the New School, where he also serves as music director of the Mannes Orchestra and heads orchestral and conducting studies. A staff conductor of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra at the Curtis Institute of Music, he has also led multiple productions for the Curtis Opera Theatre, including ManonThe Death of KlinghofferI Capuleti e i MontecchiIl barbiere di Siviglia, and L’elisir d’amore, among many others.

Mr. Hayes was music director of the Philadelphia Singers for 23 years. As a guest conductor, he has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Washington Chorus, Louisiana Philharmonic, Berkshire Choral International, and the Verbier Festival. He serves on the scholarship committee of the Edwin Garrigues Foundation and the board of directors of Chorus America.

Trained as a violinist and violist, Mr. Hayes holds a bachelor’s degree in musicology from the University of Hartford and a diploma in conducting from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller. He also studied conducting with Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School in Maine. He joined the Curtis faculty in 1990.