BIO

Conductor and composer Joseph Bozich builds shared musical experiences that connect audiences to the vast inner world of the orchestral repertoire. He brings to the podium fifteen years of experience across symphonic, operatic, and contemporary music; in 2025 he was a prizewinner at the Khachaturian International Conducting Competition in Yerevan, where he received the award for “Best Interpretation of a Work by Aram Khachaturian” with the Armenian State Symphony. He also brings the ear of a composer whose works have been performed around the globe by ensembles and organizations including the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, the Eötvös Foundation, and the Albany Symphony.

In 2025 Bozich conducted the American premiere of Sibelius's only opera, Jungfrun i tornet, in Jordan Hall, 129 years after its composition, on a program including the world premiere of his own From the Valley of Dry Bones for viola and orchestra. He made his Boston Symphony Hall debut in 2022, stepping in on short notice to lead a full production of Verdi's La traviata with professional soloists and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has prepared, covered, or conducted twenty-eight opera productions between BYSO’s annual opera, the Hungarian State Opera, Juilliard Opera, Opera Maine, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Miami Music Festival, and Opera Neo, and has coached in Italian, German, French, Finland-Swedish, and English.

Bozich was a Conducting Fellow of the Verbier Festival in 2026, where he was the assistant and cover conductor for James Gaffigan, Lahav Shani, Gábor Takács-Nagy, and Mikhail Pletnev. He has participated in the conducting programs of the Aspen Music Festival, Peter Eötvös Foundation, and Cabrillo Festival. His principal conducting teacher is Stefan Asbury; other mentors include Federico Cortese, Johannes Schlaefli, Brad Lubman, Gerard Schwarz, and Kenneth Kiesler.

As a composer, Bozich writes music that balances kinetic musical geometries, operatic intensity, and introspective spirituality. Selected by Philippe Manoury for the Ink Still Wet fellowship at the 2023 Grafenegg Festival, he composed and conducted The Widening Gyre with the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich. In 2026, he was a participant in Christopher Theofanidis’ workshop with the Albany Symphony, whose ensemble gave the first public reading of his City in Stasis, and of the Peter Eötvös Foundation's “Kurtág 100” masterclass with Thomas Adès, for which he wrote Oheim, waz wirret dir? for solo cimbalom. His saxophone quartet Babel won the 2014 Sinta Quartet Commissioning Competition and appears on the quartet's debut album Collider; his Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano was released on saxophonist Lucas Hopkins's debut album Nostos. Other commissioners include Kenneth Radnofsky, Latitude 49, and the Departure Duo. Other composition mentors include Bright Sheng and Efstratios Minakakis.

Bozich has been Associate Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras since 2019; he is a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate in orchestral conducting at the New England Conservatory in the studio of Stefan Asbury, and holds a Master of Music in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Kenneth Kiesler. In addition to conducting and composing, he is an active pianist and award-winning classical saxophonist, currently residing in Boston.