Bio

    Diego Piedra is the Orchestra Director at Valparaiso University. A strongly driven performer and educator, Dr. Piedra feels at home working on the podium with student and professional orchestras. He served as Music Director and Conductor of Spectrum Orchestra, visiting conductor at Luther College and the University of Toledo, and has been guest conductor with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Dexter Community Orchestra, and Oakland Symphony Orchestra in Michigan, and the Municipal Orchestra of Cartago and the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica. Dr. Piedra was the orchestral conducting professor at the University of Costa Rica as well as a guest violin teacher and performer in Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala. He founded the national youth orchestra Manuel María Gutiérrez at SINEM (the Costa Rican version of Venezuela’s El Sistema), and was its Music Director and Conductor from 2009-2011. Since 2014, Dr. Piedra has been Music Director at the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra’s Summer String Camp, working as a conductor, violinist, composer, and arranger. As a professional violinist, he regularly plays with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra and Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and he has been a member of the prestigious New World Symphony in Miami, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Oakland Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, and Concertmaster of the Orquesta de Cámara de Costa Rica. Dr. Piedra participated as a violinist and assistant conductor in the tour and recording of Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and Experience with the University Symphony Orchestra at the University of Michigan (winner of four Grammy awards in 2006), which culminated with performances at Carnegie Hall, New York. At Michigan, Dr. Piedra was the Music Director of the Campus Symphony Orchestra and the Campus Philharmonia Orchestra, and he conducted two full opera productions and numerous symphonic concerts. In the summer of 2017, he was awarded an honorary mention at a conducting competition in London, England, and more recently, an honorable mention from the American Prize, College/University Orchestra Division 2022. Dr. Piedra holds a DMA in Orchestral Conducting and two Master’s degrees from the University of Michigan. He studied violin with Guido Calvo, Dr. Bruce Berg, and Yehonatan Berick, and conducted with Kenneth Kiesler and participated in master classes with Simon Rattle, Carl St. Clair, Giancarlo Guerrero, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya.