Emmanuel Rojas

Assistant Conductor

Los Angeles-born conductor Emmanuel Rojas served as an assistant conductor of the USC Thornton Symphony for music director Carl St. Clair and resident conductor Sharon Lavery. He also presented concerts with members and alumni of the USC Symphony Orchestra. In Spring 2024, Emmanuel served as a conductor for the Bard Opera Workshop and assisted maestro James Bagwell for the Bard Vocal Art Program’s production of Jacques Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers. He also presented scenes from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier with singers of the Bard Vocal Arts Program and the Orchestra Now (TŌN) as part of his graduation recital. Emmanuel is currently assistant conductor of the Santa Clarita Symphony.

Emmanuel was a participant in the 2025 Spokane Symphony International Conducting Workshop with Johannes Schlaefli and James Lowe, the International Conducting Workshop & Festival with Larry Rachleff and Donald Schleicher, the Winter/Summer Baltimore Chamber Orchestra Conducting Workshop with Markand Thakar, and the Conductor’s Institute at Bard with Harold Farberman. At the USC he studied opera conducting with Brent McMunn, orchestral conducting with Larry Livingston and choral conducting with Tram Sparks. At the Bard Conservatory of Music, Emmanuel studied with James Bagwell and Leon Botstein.

As a bass trombonist, Emmanuel has performed with the American Symphony Orchestra for the 2022 Bard SummerScape production of Richard Strauss’ Die schweigsame Frau, the Burbank Philharmonic, the Downey Symphony, and the Santa Monica Symphony. Also, as guest artist of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, Emmanuel has worked with Grammy/Academy Award winner and Dean of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, Tan Dun. He also performed with Bill Cunliffe’s BACHanalia Big Band and was part of the US-premiere of Bob Mintzer’s People Music with the USC Thornton Jazz Orchestra, commissioned by the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern of the Vienna Philharmonic. Emmanuel studied with John Lofton of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at CSULB and Terry Cravens of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra at USC.

Emmanuel received a BM in Bass Trombone performance from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach in 2015. He later went on to earn his MM in Bass Trombone performance at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in 2017. He stayed at the Thornton School of Music to pursue a DMA by majoring in Bass Trombone performance, with elective concentrations in Opera Conducting (opera conducting with Brent McMunn, choral conducting with Tram Sparks, stage direction with Ken Cazan, and voice with Rodney Gilfry), Arts Leadership (with Kenneth Foster), and Music Theory/Analysis (with Ted Hearne). After finishing his doctoral coursework, Emmanuel went on to receive a MM in Orchestral Conducting from the Bard College Conservatory of Music in the Spring of 2024.