Kalena Bovell, conductor with her distinctive voice as a maestra, speaker, and poet, Panamanian-American conductor Kalena Bovell has been hailed by Channel 3 News (Connecticut) as “one of the brightest stars in classical music.” In 2023, she became the first Black woman to conduct an opera in Canada, leading a world-premiere reimagining of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha. The following year, she received the Sphinx Medal of Excellence—the highest honor awarded by the Sphinx Organization—and completed her tenure as a Taki Alsop Conducting Fellow.

In 2025, Bovell was selected as an inaugural Conducting Fellow of the San Diego Symphony, a new initiative led by Music & Artistic Director Rafael Payare to support and nurture emerging artistic voices. Through this fellowship, she will lead performances at the Jacobs Music Center and The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park while deepening her work in the Symphony’s education and community programs. 

Bovell’s 2025–2026 season includes debuts with the New World Symphony, Redlands Symphony, and Acadiana Symphony, along with a homecoming appearance with the Hartford Symphony. She also rejoins the Chineke! Orchestra for their 10-year anniversary season, marking her first collaboration with them since their BBC Proms performance in 2021.

Her Proms appearance led to a feature on Chineke!’s 2022 Coleridge-Taylor album, praised by The Financial Times for “overflowing with descriptive imagination.” She has also conducted the Kennedy Center’s Reframing the Narrative initiative, celebrating Black ballet dancers, leading works by Kevin Thomas, Donald Byrd, Kiyon Ross, and Meredith Rainey.

Raised in Los Angeles, Bovell began private violin study at 18 and worked six jobs to fund her training as a conductor. She now shares this story widely with organizations such as the BBC and the League of American Orchestras, inspiring musicians from nontraditional backgrounds. Also an accomplished poet, Bovell’s original poem, “Tethered Voices,” was performed by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra and set to music by James Lee III. She lives in Philadelphia.