Joseph Caminiti

Joseph Caminiti began his conducting career as the Assistant Conductor of the Ithaca College Symphony and Chamber Orchestras in 1996. After arriving in Philadelphia, he started the string ensemble, Solaris, before accepting the Music Director position with the Cairn Symphony Orchestra in 2001. In 2015 he served as the Music Director of the Philharmonia, an orchestra under the umbrella organization, Youth Orchestra of Bucks County. He is now Director of Orchestral Studies at West Chester University where he conducts the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, and teaches various other courses. He is also looking forward to his second year as Music Director of the Delaware County Symphony. Guest conducting appearances include the Bucks County Symphony Orchestra (2014), the Delaware Valley Wind Symphony (2014 and 2015), the PMEA District 12 Orchestra (2017), the Delaware All-State Orchestra (2017), and many other youth orchestras.

Mr. Caminiti has collaborated with arts and charitable organizations such as Advocates For the Homeless and Those in Need, Esperanza, UrbanPromise International, and ARTOLERANCE to help support underserved communities. He further values his work with living composers and guest artists such as Judith Lang Zaimont, Kile Smith, Raoul Pleskow, Ricardo Morales, Udi Bar-David, Kimberly Reighley, and Ching-Yun Hu.

Committed to connecting with audiences through dynamic and thoughtful concerts, Mr. Caminiti has created various performance formats including “Concerts in The Round,” smartphone-friendly features, in-concert conversations, multi-media elements, pre-concert “round-tables,” and family concerts with instrument petting zoos for children.He also recently launched at West Chester University the “Quad Concert” series that included audience-selected film scores alongside Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Chabrier’s España. This outdoor performance was so well received that CBS News spontaneously ran a spot on it.

As a horn player, Mr. Caminiti is acting principal horn of the Riverside Symphonia (Lambertville, New Jersey), member of the Fairmount Chamber Ensemble (Philadelphia), and is a chamber recitalist with other professional ensembles throughout the Philadelphia region. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and violinist, Kirsten. They are active birders and savor hearty conversations over coffee.