SAMANTHA BURGESS

Assistant Conductor

Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2022, Samantha has quickly become an in-demand conductor. In the 2024–25 season she began her tenure as Music Director of the Community Women’s Orchestra, where she has given numerous world and U.S. premieres of works by women composers. Beginning in the 2025–26 season, Samantha was appointed as the first Music Director of Symphony Tierra, a semi-professional chamber orchestra formed as the ensemble in residence at Napa Valley College. In March 2027, she will perform as a Guest Conductor and Music Director Candidate with the Peninsula Symphony, where she is currently on the artistic staff as Assistant Conductor. Samantha continues to work with the Berkeley Symphony as their regular Assistant Conductor, and has been invited as a Cover Conductor at the San Francisco Symphony for Dima Slobodeniouk and Karina Canellakis. 

Samantha’s additional recent engagements include Guest Conducting Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem with the Napa Valley Chorale, Assistant Conducting for Beethoven’s Ninth with the Oakland Symphony, and a tour of Paris and the Loire Valley with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, where she made her French debut. Previously, she was Assistant Conductor with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, the Westerville Symphony (OH), the Galesburg Community Chorus (IL), and the Oxford University Philharmonia (UK). 

Samantha holds masters’ degrees in Orchestral Conducting and Music Theory from The Ohio State University, where she was Music Director of the Ohio State Community Orchestra and Assistant Conductor for the Ohio State Symphony Orchestra. While at OSU, she was also a graduate teaching assistant in Music Theory and a member of the Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Laboratory. On the podium, Samantha combines conducting with her background in music cognition research to develop innovative, multimedia performances. She has presented her research at the Society for Music Theory Midwest Conference, Future Directions of Music Cognition, and the Oxford Conducting Institute International Conducting Studies Conference. 

Samantha has conducted in masterclasses and competitions in the USA and abroad—notably in September 2023, when she finished as a semi-finalist in the International Academy and Competition for Orchestral Conducting in Portugal. She has also participated in the George Hurst Conductor’s Course at the Sherborne Summer School of Music, the London Conducting Workshop, the New York Conducting Workshop, and the International Conducting Workshop and Competition in Atlanta, GA.