Conductors

the Lakeland (Florida) Symphony and Opera Association. From that experience, Lakeland has named him as their new Principal Opera Conductor.

In 2018 Moody completed eleven-years as Music Director of the Portland Symphony Orchestra (Maine), and thirteen-years as Music Director of the Winston-Salem Symphony (NC). Prior to that he served as Resident Conductor for the Phoenix Symphony, Chorus Master for Santa Fe Opera, and Associate Conductor for the Evansville (IN) Philharmonic Orchestra.

This past summer, Moody was invited to return to South Africa for a tour of concerts with the three major orchestras of that country – in Durban, Johannesburg, and Cape Town. Other recent and upcoming guest conducting includes the orchestras of Bogota, Colombia; Aachen and Baden-Baden, Germany; The Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans, The Sacramento Philharmonic and Pacific Symphony in California, Sewanee Music Festival in Tennessee, and his first return to the Winston-Salem Symphony in North Carolina.

Prior Guest Conducting has included Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and the orchestras of Toronto, Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, Seattle, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Buffalo, Columbus, Louisville, Minnesota, and Slovenian Philharmonic. Festival conducting includes Santa Fe Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, Brevard Music Center, Sewanee Festival, Eastern Music Festival, Skaneateles Festival, Bowdoin International Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival.

Equally at home in the opera pit, Moody began his career as apprentice conductor for the Landestheater Opera in Linz, Austria. He conducted for the opera companies of Santa Fe, Brevard Music Center, and Hilton Head Opera. He also assisted on a production of Verdi Otello at the Metropolitan Opera (NY), conducted by Valery Gergiev, and at The English National Opera, where he was Assistant Conductor for Kurt Weill Street Scene. He made his Washington National Opera and North Carolina Opera debuts in 2014, and conducted Bartok Bluebeard’s Castle, Leoncavallo I Pagliacci, and Poulenc Dialogues of the Carmelites in the seasons following. Debuts to rave reviews with Brevard Music Center for Weill Street Scene, Opera Carolina for Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro, and Des Moines Metro Opera for Strauss Die Fledermaus came in 2017 and 2018. He made his debut with Opera Memphis in Mozart Cosi fan tutte in 2022.

Appointed Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Sinfonietta from 2021-2022, Dickson has served as Assistant/Cover Conductor for the Orchestre de Paris, NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, New York Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, St. Louis, Minnesota, San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago, and the National Symphony (Washington, DC). He has assisted Esa-Pekka Salonen, Fabio Biondi, Stéphane Denève, Andrew Manze, James Conlon, Carlos Prieto, Osmo Vänskä, Raphael Payare and Kevin John Edusei among others.

His passion for music education has led to many collaborations with youth ensembles around the country. Dickson has served as Conductor of the Claremont Young Musicians Orchestra and the South Side Chicago Youth Symphony. He’s been Assistant Conductor for Carnegie Hall’s 2022 NYO USA/NYO2 Tour and the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles. Additionally, he was named 2017 Hyde Park Youth Symphony Artist-In-Residence and has worked with Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, National Symphony Orchestra's 2021 Summer Music Institute, Ravinia’s El Sistema program, Colburn Academy Virtuosi and the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Dickson was a Guest Conductor at 2023 Chicago Youth In Music Festival Orchestra and this season will conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition.

Dickson was selected as a Conducting Fellow at the 2021 National Orchestral Institute’s Conducting Academy directed by Marin Alsop and as a Paul Freeman Conducting Fellow under the mentorship of Mei-Ann Chen from 2019-2022. Dickson was also trained as a violinist and a prizewinner at the 2010 NANM National Concerto Competition. He’s held residencies at Indiana University-South Bend, the United World College of South East Asia, and served on the violin and chamber music faculty at the New Music School (Chicago). He has performed with the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, Quad City Symphony, and was Concertmaster of the Chicago Composers Orchestra. Additionally, his playing can be heard on albums by recording artists such as John Legend, Chance the Rapper, and Jessie J as a member of the Matt Jones/Recollective Orchestra.

Dickson studied conducting at the Colburn School and Northwestern University. His principal conducting teachers include Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mei-Ann Chen, Kevin Noe, and Victor Yampolsky. He received degrees in violin performance and music education from DePaul University and Michigan State University studying with Walter Verdehr, Laura Roelofs, and Olga Kaler.