Conductor and pianist Leslie Dala is the Music Director of the Vancouver Bach Choir, the Associate Conductor and Chorus Director of Vancouver Opera, and the Music Director Emeritus of the Vancouver Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted in France, Italy, Ireland, the Czech Republic, China, Taiwan and recently at Carnegie Hall leading Mozart’s Sparrow Mass with a combined choir of Canadian and American choirs and the New England Symphonic Ensemble. Leslie was Music Director of the Prince George Symphony for eight years and he has worked at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Canadian Opera Company, the Santa Fe Opera, l'Opera National du Rhin, Edmonton Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria and Saskatoon Opera and he is a frequent guest conductor with the UBC Opera Ensemble, the COSI Program in Sulmona Italy and Soundstreams Canada.
Recent conducting highlights include the world premiere of The River of Light, by Brian Current with the Vancouver Bach Choir during the Vancouver Opera Festival as well as Rossini’s La Cenerentola for Vancouver Opera. In the fall of 2018 he made his debut at the Wexford Festival in Ireland where he conducted William Bolcolm’s opera Dinner at Eight as well as Max Richter’s The Four Seasons Recomposed. Other recent highlights include the Verdi Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Vancouver Bach Choir; the UBC Opera Ensemble’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi.
As a pianist, he recently performed Betthoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Prince George Symphony and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the West Coast Symphony. He also recorded the Complete Etudes of celebrated American composer Philip Glass for the Redshift Music label.