“A confident and expressive communicator,”(New York Classical Review) Ian Niederhoffer has been praised for his elegance and dynamism on the podium. Now in his third season as Founder and Music Director of Parlando, he has quickly established the orchestra as “a serious player on the New York classical scene” through his gift for storytelling and inventive programming.

Winner of three prizes at the 2021 Khachaturian International Conducting Competition, Ian will be returning to conduct the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra during the upcoming season as winner of the Audience Prize. Recent engagements include appearances with On Site Opera, Music Talks, Gramercy Opera, and cover conducting for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

In 2019, he made his European operatic debut conducting two world premiere chamber operas at the Wiener Kammeroper with the Vienna Summer Music Festival. In 2017, he made his U.S. professional debut with the Vermont Mozart Festival and was invited back as Conductor of their 2018 season, leading the Festival Orchestra in several concerts across Northern Vermont. Later that year, he appeared as guest conductor with the Salomé Chamber Orchestra at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

A participant in both the 2019 and 2022 Järvi Conducting Academies, where he conducted in master classes with Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, Kristjan Järvi, and Leonid Grin, Ian began his conducting studies at the age of 15. In 2021, he was named Artist of Promise at the Conducting Academy of the Verbier Festival where he assistant conducted for Lahav Shani, Daniel Harding, Antonio Pappano, and Gábor Takacs-Nágy.

Dedicated to the audience experience, Ian seeks to make classical music engaging while preserving the integrity of the music. He has become known as a charismatic, engaging pre-concert speaker, with an anecdotal style that puts the audience at ease. Inventor of the “chili pepper system,” where each ♪ represents a level of listening difficulty, like chili peppers at a Thai restaurant, Ian is committed to making the concert experience engaging and comprehensible for all audiences.

Ian has long been dedicated to commissioning new works. Under his leadership, Parlando has commissioned new works by inti figgis-vizueta, Jarod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Mason Bynes, and Anna Roberts-Gevalt. While studying at Yale College, he founded and served as Music Director for the Yale Undergraduate Chamber Orchestra, commissioning six world premieres over his three-year tenure. He also served as Assistant Conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Opera Theater of Yale College.

He graduated with distinction with a B.A. in Music and was awarded both the Wrexham Prize and the Joseph Lentilhon Selden Memorial Award by Yale University for his “verve, idealism, and constructive interest in music.”

His principal teachers include Leonid Grin, Toshiyuki Shimada, and William Boughton.