Coco

This season, Conner Gray Covington debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Tallahassee Symphony, and Vancouver Symphony, and makes return visits to the San Diego Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, and Utah Symphony. From 2017–21, Covington served as associate conductor of the Utah Symphony and principal conductor of the Deer Valley Music Festival. He recently made his Utah Opera debut conducting Le nozze di Figaro and collaborated on a production of Roméo et Juliette with Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center.

Covington has appeared with the Kansas City Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Portland (Maine) Symphony, Rochester Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and Virginia Symphony. In 2014, he was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic to attend the Salzburg Festival as a recipient of the Ansbacher Fellowship for Young Conductors, and is four-time recipient of the Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation US.

Born in Louisiana, Covington grew up in Tennessee and began playing the violin at age 11. He studied conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music and made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2016 with the Curtis Symphony.

Composer Michael Giacchino has credits that feature some of the most popular and acclaimed film projects in recent history, including The Incredibles, War for the Planet of the Apes, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Jurassic World, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Coco. Giacchino’s 2009 score for the Pixar hit Up earned him an Oscar, a Golden Globe, the BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Critics’ Choice Award, and two Grammy Awards.

Giacchino studied filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in New York. After college, he landed a marketing job at Disney and began studies in music composition, first at Juilliard, and then at UCLA. He moved from marketing to producing in the newly formed Disney Interactive Division where he had the opportunity to write music for video games.

After moving to DreamWorks Interactive, he was asked to score the temp track for the video game adaptation of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Subsequently, Steven Spielberg hired him as the composer and it became the first PlayStation game to have a live orchestral score, recorded with members of the Seattle Symphony. Giacchino went on to score numerous video games including Spielberg’s Medal of Honor series.

Giacchino’s work in video games sparked the interest of J.J. Abrams, and thus began their long-standing relationship that would lead to scores for the hit television series Alias and Lost, and the feature films Mission Impossible III, Star Trek, Super 8, and Star Trek Into Darkness.

Additional projects include collaborations with Disney Imagineering on music for Space Mountain, Star Tours (with John Williams), the Ratatouille ride in Disneyland Paris, and the Incredicoaster on Pixar Pier at California Adventure. Giacchino was the musical director of the 81st Annual Academy Awards. His music can be heard in concert halls internationally with all three Star Trek films, Ratatouille, Jurassic World, Up, and Coco being performed live-to-picture with a full orchestra. In June 2018, Giacchino premiered his first work for symphony orchestra, Voyage. Commissioned by the National Symphony and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the piece celebrates the 60th anniversary of the founding of NASA. In July 2019, a third movement was added for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Giacchino serves as the governor of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the advisory board of Education Through Music Los Angeles.