Music Director

Award winning conductor John Page was appointed Music Director of the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2011. Mr. Page’s conducting career began with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland in 2000, and his 2002 performances of Viktor Ullmann’s The Emperor of Atlantis garnered the prestigious Irish Times Opera of the Year award. Since then he has returned to Ireland frequently to record with the Irish Film Orchestra and his many recordings with PBS show Celtic Woman have earned multiple platinum discs.

 In 2003 Mr. Page moved to the US and was appointed Zander Fellow to the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and from 2005 to 2009 he was the orchestra’s Assistant Conductor. In 2006 John Page joined the Faculty of New England Conservatory as Resident Conductor and Music Director of the NEC Sinfonietta and later, NEC Symphony. In spring 2011 Mr. Page was a Visiting Associate Professor at Boston University assuming the duties of Director of Orchestral Activities. He is co-founder and Artistic Director of the PARMA Orchestra and was appointed Director of Orchestral Activities at Tufts University in 2012 with responsibility for the Tufts Symphony Orchestra, Tufts Chamber Orchestra and Tufts Youth Philharmonic. He has traveled with the Tufts Orchestra to Costa Rica (2018), Italy (2020), and Slovenia, Austria and the Czech Republic (2023) where he had the pleasure of conducting in the Slovenian Philharmonic Hall in Ljubljana and Smetana Hall in Prague. He also helped form the new MA in Conducting at Tufts in 2021. In Fall 2017 John Page was invited to direct Carmen with the newly formed Foyle Opera in his hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland. In recognition of his work with younger musicians Mr. Page was selected to conduct the 2018 NH all-state festival orchestra at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord and in 2022, he was selected to conduct the MA all-state festival orchestra in Symphony Hall in Boston.  

From December 2011 to 2014 Mr. Page conducted the extremely successful Celtic Woman Symphony Tours of the US. He has conducted many major orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Virginia Symphony and West Virginia Symphony, the Ulster Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.