Co Boi Nguyen

Since July 2005, Co Boi Nguyen has been conductor and faculty member of the C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival, Long Island University, New York. She served as assistant conductor of the Cosmopolitan Orchestra in New York and led the ensemble in the first U.S recording of A. Tcherepnin's Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra last October. 

A native of Hanoi, Nguyen returns regularly to perform and to give master classes. She made her highly acclaimed debut with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra at the Hanoi Opera House in July 2002, making her the first woman and the youngest conductor ever to lead the 50-year-old ensemble. 

An advocate of contemporary music, Nguyen conducted the world premiere of Tony Prabowo's Requiem for Strings with the Mannes Orchestra in 1998 and appears in Juilliard's annual Focus Festival. 

Also a champion of world music, she was invited to participate in the Asia-Pacific Performance Exchange Program in 1997, a prestigious two-month gathering organized by UCLA's Department of World Arts and Culture designed to foster cultural exchange among artists from Asia and the U.S. 

Nguyen has participated in various summer programs, including the Vienna Conservatory of Music Exchange Program, and the Aspen Music Festival and School. 

Among numerous distinguished awards, Nguyen was a Fellowship Grantee of the Asian Cultural Council, an affiliate of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, from 1997 to 2003, as well as a grant recipient of the Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation in 2002. 

While she was a student at the Hanoi National Conservatory, Nguyen was invited to perform at the state reception for former president George H. W. Bush at the Municipal Hall of Hanoi during the president's first visit to Vietnam in the fall of 1995. 

Nguyen is a graduate of the conducting programs at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School.

• B.M., Hanoi Conservatory

• M.Mus, Mannes College of Music

• Artist Diploma, Curtis Institute of Music

• Graduate Diploma, the Juilliard School

• Juilliard School’s Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2003-2005

• Curtis Institute of Music’s Lester Henry Grundy Fellowship, 2000-2003

• Asian Cultural Council (affiliate of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund) Fellowship Grant, awarded to promising artists from Asia to study, research, create works, and travel in the United States, 1997-2003

• Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation Grant, awarded to youngest Vietnamese conductor and the first woman to make a debut with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, 2002

• Mannes College of Music’s Milani Memorial Conducting Fellowship, 1998-2000

• Mannes College of Music’s George and Elizabeth Gregory Award for Excellence in Performance, awarded to outstanding graduate student, 2000

• Aspen Music Festival’s Conducting Fellowship, 1999

• Asia-Pacific Performance Exchange Fellowship, awarded to talented Asian artists to do residency at the Department of World Arts and Culture, UCLA, 1997

• Awarded Assistant Conductor at the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra upon graduation, 1995

• Hanoi National Conservatory Outstanding Student of the Year Award, 1994 and 1995

Presentations

• The Asia Society, moderator and adviser of Vietnam Family Day, an educational program introducing children to the arts and culture of Vietnam, 2005-2006

• New York City Public Radio, WNYC, Soundcheck, guest speaker, February 2005

• Historical and musical introduction to Paul Chihara’s “An Afternoon on the Perfume River” before the New York premiere on Carnegie Hall stage, February 2004

• Speaker in “3 Places: Linking Audience through Musical Tradition”, a multimedia program of music and discussion designed to explore the dynamic of history and culture on the creative artist. Presented by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Queens Borough Public Library, Flushing, February 2004

• American Museum of Natural History’s Exhibition “Vietnam: The Journey of Spirit, Mind, and Body”, Adviser/Coordinator/Moderator for Vietnamese Traditional Performing Arts, 2003

• Outreach Program Coordinator in Vietnam for The Philadelphia Orchestra, 1999 Asia Tour, and The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, 1998 Asia Tour. Organized master classes given by members of both orchestras to students at the Hanoi National Conservatory, and presentations of gifts (music scores and recordings) to the Hanoi National Conservatory’s Library.