Teddy Poll is an American/German conductor and composer.
Beginning his training as a pianist and singer, he finished his studies in composition, theory, and analysis in Paris and Berlin with disciples of Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen, before devoting himself to the craft of conducting.
Teddy joins the Houston Grand Opera in 23/24 as Resident Conductor, making his debut in performances of Madama Butterfly. In previous seasons, he has appeared as a guest artist at the Juilliard School, as well as in performances and workshops with Opera Philadelphia, the Glimmerglass Festival, Bare Opera, and the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. He has been on music staff as an Assistant Conductor at the Glimmerglass Festival and San Francisco Opera. Teddy was a Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Versatile as a composer, he has written concert, vocal and film music that has been commissioned by PCMS and the Presser Foundation, and has won an ASCAP Morton Gould award. He is also a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Workshop and is currently composing an American Comic Opera based on Terrence McNally’s “The Ritz,” in collaboration with the McNally Estate and director Peter Kazaras.
He has studied theatre and dramaturgy with director Stephen Wadsworth, and has participated in masterclasses with Vladimir Jurowski, Michael Tilson Thomas, Marin Alsop, Jacques Lacombe, Gustav Meier, Larry Rachleff, and Mark Gibson.
During the pandemic, Teddy deepened his service to the cause of music and musicians as Artistic and Educational Director of Musical Mentors Collaborative, then as Founder and CEO of Practice.Party, an innovative nonprofit which paid out-of-work musicians to teach music lessons to folks in need, with a special focus on those experiencing or exiting homelessness. In this capacity, he has worked with prominent artists such as Emanuel Ax, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Arturo O’Farrill, Christine Goerke, and Jeanine Tesori, among others. Two days after the invasion of Ukraine, Practice.Party initiated a program focused on bringing music lessons to internally displaced Ukrainian children, while serving as the sole source of income for Ukrainian musicians.
Teddy is fluent in German, French, and Italian, and holds a BA and a MSW from Columbia University, an MM from Mannes College of Music and the Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music.