Molly Turner

Described by The Washington Post as “a force of nature from the podium,” rising star, American conductor Molly Turner is an exceptional young talent who directs with fervor and imagination. Turner serves as Associate Conductor of Minnesota Orchestra in the 2026-27 season. She is a former Dudamel Fellow of Los Angeles Philharmonic (2024-25) and a former Conducting Fellow of New World Symphony (2023-25).

As part of her 2026-27 Minnesota Orchestra position, Turner conducts a variety of performances including the 2027 Lunar New Year celebration, Young People’s Concerts and Symphony for the Cities, also making her subscription debut in July 2027. Elsewhere in the U.S., she debuts with the Louisville Orchestra, Kalamazoo and Alabama symphony orchestras, and returns to the Juilliard Orchestra to make her conducting debut at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in a special Earth Day concert featuring Caroline Shaw’s co-commissioned Trees. The 2026-27 season also marks Turner’s first appearance in Japan, with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, while in Europe she continues to expand her presence through debut engagements with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (children’s concert series with radio3), Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester and The Orchestra of Scottish Opera.

Recent highlights include Green Umbrella, Symphonies for Schools and Noon to Midnight engagements with Los Angeles Philharmonic; a debut with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as part of its summer series; a return to Orchestre de Paris to conduct a series of Young Person concerts; as well as successful debuts in the Nordics with Kristiansand Symfoniokester and at the 2026 Bergen International Festival with BIT20 Ensemble. Recent engagements extend to San Francisco Symphony’s SoundBox series, Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music, Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra for a collaborative project of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker with Troupe Vertigo, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Dallas Opera Orchestra and Grand Rapids Opera for performances of contemporary opera Stuck Elevator.

From Beethoven and Brahms to Stravinsky, Bartók and Barber, Turner’s wide-ranging repertoire also includes a strong interest in contemporary music; she has conducted works by Wynton Marsalis, Jessie Montgomery and Caroline Shaw, to name a few, and has collaborated with composers such as Jimmy Lopez, Donnacha Dennehy, Nico Muhly, Paul Novak and Billy Childs. A composer herself, she has premiered her own works – most recently Open Doors for orchestra. In her own music, she is interested in the balance between strictly dictated elements and more aleatoric notation, and her relationship to the standard repertoire is often integrated in subtle ways beneath the foreground of the music. Pursuing projects outside of the traditional concert hall is also an important part of Turner’s artistic identity, from improvisatory works to multimedia performances.

A 2026-28 Award Recipient of the Taki Alsop Fellowship, Turner also took part in the 2026 La Maestra Competition as the first American finalist. She participated in the 2025 Verbier and Lucerne festivals as a conducting fellow and has previously served as cover conductor for New York Philharmonic and as assistant conductor for Berliner Philharmoniker, San Francisco Symphony and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, among other orchestras. In 2019 she was the youngest conductor invited for a residency at the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors. She was also the first recipient of the Judy Rodin Fellowship for an Outstanding Woman Musician at New World Symphony. Turner received her artist diploma at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, studying under the guidance of Esa-Pekka Salonen as a Salonen Fellow, and completed her master’s degree in orchestral conducting at The Juilliard School, where she studied with David Robertson. She initially trained as a composer, receiving her bachelor’s degree at Rice University.