Paola Ávila
Musician. Conductor. Educator
Colombian conductor Paola Ávila currently serves as the Music Director of the Women’s Philharmonic Orchestra, an Orchestra created by the Bogotá Philharmonic, Music Director of the Orquesta de los Andes, and Music Director of the Cartagena Philharmonic.
Recent highlights include her debut at Teatro Colón leading a production of The Magic Flute, and several performances during the Cartagena Music Festival with Hungarian Pianist János Balázs, the Bulgarian voices of the Eva Quartet, and Colombian pianist Teresita Gómez.
Paola Ávila served as Music Director of the Coro Filarmónico Juvenil, the UniMusica Youth Symphony Orchestra, and one of the youth orchestras of El Sistema project in Bogotá, Colombia. She has been assistant conductor of the Peabody Conservatory Youth Orchestra in Baltimore - USA, and served as cover/assistant conductor of the prestigious Colombia Youth Philharmonic (Filarmónica Joven de Colombia) during their tours.
As a consequence of her interest in symphonic music and passion for education and social transformation through music, Paola Ávila has worked with Orchkids, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s music program inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema, reinforcing her contact with community outreach and education.
Ávila holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where was mentored by Marin Alsop. She also was selected as a Freeman Conducting Fellow at the Chicago Sinfonietta.
She has worked with several mentors and orchestras included conductors Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Nicholas McGegan, Cristi Macelaru, and Markus Stenz, with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Pärnu Music Festival Chamber Orchestra (Estonia), Filharmònica de Cambra de Catalunya (Spain), Cabrillo Festival Orchestra (USA), and the Colombia National Symphony Orchestra, among others.
She earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting with SUMMA CUM LAUDE honors, from the Juan N. Corpas University in Bogotá, Colombia under the guidance of Jorge Alejandro Salazar.