Joel Neves

Biography

Joel Neves is Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Activities at Michigan Tech where he conducts the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra. The KSO was awarded 2nd Place nationally in the American Prize in Orchestral Performance for its recordings of Jupiter and Sinfonia antartica. The orchestra recently premiered Joel’s new tone poem—Kalaupapa—about his great-grandparents’ imprisonment in Molokai’s leper colony. Joel conducted the Hawaiian premiere of Kalaupapa in Honolulu in December 2024.

Joel is a regular guest conductor of professional, college, and all-state orchestras. He has guest conducted the Hubei Symphony Orchestra in Wuhan, China (2015), the Orquesta Sinfónica de Entre Ríos in Argentina (2015, 2017), and the Filarmonica de Stat Sibiu in Romania (2024). He is currently Artistic Director and Conductor of the Pine Mountain Music Festival, a professional opera and classical music festival in Michigan. Joel was assistant conductor of the Orchestra of Southern Utah for three seasons and has guest conducted the orchestras at Brigham Young University, Northern Arizona University, Metro State University of Denver, and University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. He has conducted All-State Orchestras in Utah, Idaho, and South Dakota, the Kentucky All-Collegiate Orchestra, and the Stephen Foster Orchestra Music Camp in Kentucky.

Equally adept at theatre, Joel has directed numerous opera, ballet, and music theatre productions. He conducted How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying at Southern Utah University, Bizet’s Carmen with the Pine Mountain Music Festival, and Amahl and the Night Visitors, Swan Lake, South Pacific, West Side Story, and Sweeney Todd with Tech Theatre. He has also conducted multiple productions of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker with the Minnesota Ballet (2015, 2018, 2021) and Talmi Entertainment (2025).

A strong advocate for college conductors, Joel served as national President of the College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA), the only professional service organization for conductors of university orchestra programs in North America. As president, he organized the 2019 CODA National Conference in Boston with the theme, “Repertoire and Programming for the 21st Century College Orchestra.” For the conference, he brought in Peter Schickele as keynote speaker, Andris Nelsons (Music Director, Boston Symphony) as special guest, and the Handel & Haydn Society for a workshop on Baroque repertoire.

Joel studied conducting with Larry Rachleff, Gustav Meier, Kory Katseanes, Timothy Russell, and William Reber. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts in orchestral, choral, and opera conducting from Arizona State University and bachelors and masters degrees from Brigham Young University. He resides in Houghton, Michigan with his wife (mezzo, Lara Neves), daughters, and dog, Puccini.