Currently in his second season as Music Director of the Omaha Symphony, Ankush Kumar Bahl has delivered resonant performances of masterworks, championed American composers and artists, and demonstrated innovative, community-based concert design. Recognized by orchestras and audiences alike for his impressive conducting technique, thoughtful interpretations, and engaging podium presence, Bahl has been praised by The New York Times for his “clear authority and enthusiasm” and his ability to “inspire.”

Highlights of past engagements include the New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, and the National Symphony Orchestra (D.C.). He has appeared at summer festivals with the Copenhagen Philharmonic at Tivoli, Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Wolf Trap with the NSO, Brevard, and the Chautauqua Institute.

Bahl has received four Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards as well as the 2009 Felix Mendelssohn- Bartholdy Scholarship. A protégé of Kurt Masur, Bahl served as his assistant conductor at the Orchestre National de France, Concertgebouw, and Gewandhaus Orchestra. He was next at the National Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach. Additional mentors include Jaap van Zweden, Zdenek Macal, David Zinman, and Gianandrea Noseda.

American born and of Indian descent, Bahl is a native of the SF Bay Area and received a double degree in music and rhetoric from the U.C. Berkeley, studying conducting with David Milnes. He is also an alumni of the Aspen Music Festival and completed his master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting at the Manhattan School of Music with Zdenek Macal and George Manahan.