Daniel Wiley and Luke Poeppel to conduct a variety of concerts, including holiday, family, education and special presentations

KANSAS CITY, Mo. | September 25, 2024 — The Kansas City Symphony has selected two assistant conductors for the 2024/2025 concert season. Following extensive auditions and interviews, Daniel Wiley and Luke Poeppel have been named David T. Beals III Assistant Conductors.

Wiley, who joined the Symphony on its first European tour this past August, will conduct Young People’s Concerts, Support School Music concerts, and the September 28 special presentation with Dionne Warwick. He will also lead a holiday concert with The Texas Tenors, Family Series productions, and two concert evenings with Ben Folds.

Wiley has made guest appearances with orchestras and ballets across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and previously served Assistant Conductor for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra & Pops. He has conducted new music ensembles for the Musicbed Music and Film Corporation in Fort Worth, Texas, and has also participated in the Composing in the Wilderness program, part of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival in Alaska. He has conducted numerous world premieres in Denali National Park as part of the Composing in the Wilderness program. A former public-school music teacher, Wiley is passionate about music education and frequently volunteers as a guest clinician.

Poeppel, an American-German conductor based in Rochester, New York, will lead Handel’s Messiah, children’s concerts, school programs such as KinderKonzerts and LinkUp, and a special concert featuring Cody Fry. Poeppel is a master’s student at the Eastman School of Music and was selected for Ensemble Modern’s 2023-2024 ICCS young professionals’ program.

Kansas City Symphony Music Director Matthias Pintscher expressed excitement about the new appointments. “I couldn’t be happier to welcome Daniel and Luke to the Kansas City Symphony. Their inspiring musicianship will be fully on display throughout the season as they lead programs of the great masters, contemporary artists, and concerts for young audiences filled with wonder and delight.”

Both conductors will share cover conducting duties for the Symphony’s classical series.

New Musicians Joining the Symphony

Aaron You-Xin Li, violin
A native of Tainan, Taiwan, Aaron You-Xin Li was most recently a violin fellow in the New World Symphony where he performed as concertmaster under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas and principal second violin under Stéphane Denève. He earned his master’s degree from Indiana University as a student of Grigory Kalinovsky and his bachelor’s degree from Taipei National University of Arts. Li has participated in numerous music festivals, serving as concertmaster and associate concertmaster at the Spoleto Music Festival and performing at the Sarasota Music Festival, Dragonfly International Music Festival, Casalmaggiore Music Festival, Walnut Hill Music Festival and National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra youth summer music festival. During his time at Music Academy of the West, he was chosen for the String Quartet Seminar and won a spot in the Keston Music Academy Exchange Program to play with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Alejandro Lombo, flute and piccolo
Alejandro Lombo was previously the principal flute of Symphony in C and has performed regularly with the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2019. Most recently, he went on the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2023 European tour, performing in Luxembourg, Paris, Hamburg and Baden-Baden under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In the summer of 2023, Alejandro performed with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra at Lincoln Center under the direction of Louis Langrée and attended the Music Academy of the West, where he won the Keston Music Academy Exchange competition and subsequently performed with the London Symphony Orchestra. He also has performed with the Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony and Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center (formerly Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra) among others. Lombo studied with Jeffrey Khaner at the Juilliard School, where he earned his master’s degree, and at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he earned his bachelor’s degree.

Ayrton Pisco, violin
A native of Brasília, Brazil, Ayrton Pisco holds degrees from Yale University, the University of Southern California and San Diego State University. He has also been a fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New World Symphony. He has participated in several music festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Sarasota, Bayreuth (Germany) and Sapporo (Japan). His principal teachers include Ani Kavafian, Margaret Batjer, Pei-Chun Tsai and his father, Ayrton Macedo Pisco. A seasoned orchestra musician, Pisco has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Symphony and New Haven Symphony. Concert engagements have taken him across North and South America, Europe and Asia. In addition to classical music, Pisco also enjoys performing in genres such as jazz, tango, bossa nova, choro, mariachi and others.

Hyojoon Park, trumpet
Originally from Toronto, Canada, trumpeter Hyojoon Park joins the Kansas City Symphony for the 2024/2025 season. He also performs regularly as a substitute musician with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and has performed with the New World Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Orchestra Iowa and Symphony of Northwest Arkansas. Additionally, he is a member of Michigan’s world-renowned Brass Band of Battle Creek. Park holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the UMKC Conservatory, a master’s degree from Michigan State University and a bachelor’s degree from McGill University. He has studied with Keith Benjamin, Justin Emerich, Christopher Smith and Andrew Dunn.

Sally Kim, cello
Sally Kim was born in South Korea and moved to New Zealand at age 6. She earned a doctorate from the University of Miami, where she studied under Ross Harbaugh. While there, Sally served as a teaching assistant and was honored as a Henry Mancini Fellow. She also holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Auckland and a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. Her cello teachers include James Tennant, Edith Salzmann and Paul Katz. She previously performed with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra and made her solo debut with the St. Matthews Orchestra at age 14. As a dedicated music ambassador, Kim has toured Asia performing in China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste. Concert engagements and festivals have also taken her to the United Kingdom and several European countries.

 

About Matthias Pintscher, music director
Matthias Pintscher, Music Director of the Kansas City Symphony, brings a wealth of experience and artistry to his new role, with a particular dedication to expanding the Symphony’s reach within the Kansas City community. After a decade-long tenure as the Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, Pintscher has demonstrated his commitment to contemporary music. His dual role as conductor and composer has garnered global recognition, with his works performed by major symphony orchestras worldwide. Now, he is eager to channel his passion and expertise into bringing classical programming to broader and more diverse audiences, enriching the cultural landscape of Kansas City.

About the Kansas City Symphony 
In only its 42nd season, the Kansas City Symphony has already become one of America’s most vibrant major orchestras and has gained national and international recognition. With the 2024/2025 season, the Symphony welcomes conductor and composer Matthias Pintscher as its new music director. Pintscher regularly conducts many of the world’s best orchestras and opera companies and ranks as one of the world’s foremost composers of orchestral music.

Continually creating live music experiences in Helzberg Hall, located in the prestigious Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, the Symphony serves Kansas City’s metro population of more than 2.2 million people as well as welcoming visitors from around the globe. The Symphony’s 80 full-time musicians from around the world bring a diverse and dynamic range of musical experiences to our audiences in both orchestral and chamber music formats each season. In addition to concerts in Helzberg Hall, Symphony musicians perform throughout the region on our portable stage, the Mobile Music Box. The Symphony also serves as the orchestra for the Kansas City Ballet and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, adding to the rich cultural experiences that these organizations offer to the community.

Top international soloists perform with the Kansas City Symphony every season, including brilliant classical musicians, popular singer/songwriters, rock bands and other creative performers. The Symphony performs live soundtracks for a variety of fan-favorite films, with the movie projected on a giant screen above the stage.

For more information, visit kcsymphony.org.