David Commanday is Artistic Director/Conductor of the Heartland Festival Orchestra, and Director of Orchestral Activities at Eastern Illinois University.  His career has brought him renown on three continents, and spans the fields of concert hall, ballet and opera, directing professional, university, and youth orchestras. He is known for a vital connection with musicians and audience, and for compelling performances, with depth in the classics and sparkle in pops.

He is the founding Artistic Director/Conductor of the Heartland Festival Orchestra, now in its 16th season. The HFO and Commanday were recognized as Professional Orchestra and Conductor of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras.

Maestro Commanday was Music Director of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra for a decade in which the PSO rose to be recognized as an orchestra of regional distinction, doubled its endowment, and presented world-class guest artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Hilary Hahn, Bobby McFerrin, Joshua Bell, Sharon Isbin, Emanuel Ax, and Itzhak Perlman.

David’s career began with his appointment as Music Director of the Boston Ballet. He toured with Boston and Rudolf Nureyev across Europe, the U.S., and Mexico, conducting Swan Lake, Giselle, and Don Quixote. Subsequent positions include Assistant Conductor of the San Diego Symphony and Associate Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He was Interim Music Director of the Carmel Symphony Orchestra (Indiana) for the 2023-24 season.

His guest engagements with professional orchestras have spanned the globe. Abroad, Maestro Commanday has appeared with the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Belgian Radio Orchestra, and Pro Arte Orchestra of Vienna. At home, he has guest-conducted the National Symphony, American Symphony, Flagstaff Symphony, North Carolina Philharmonic, Eastern Connecticut Symphony, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, and Atlanta Symphony.  A sought-after ballet conductor, he has worked with the Joffrey Ballet, Ballet West, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the ballet companies of Richmond, Sacramento, Washington, Peoria, Kansas City, Orlando, and Oklahoma City.

As Music Director of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, Commanday brought the BYSO to national recognition, earning three ASCAP awards for programming and leading international tours to Austria and Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, and England. Commanday commissioned and led the world premiere of the Double Concerto by Ivan Tcherepnin, with the BYSO and soloists Lynn Chang and Yo-Yo Ma. The performance earned extraordinary laurels by winning the prestigious Grawemeyer Award as the finest new work premiered that year. Other premieres and performances of major works such as Mahler’s 1st, Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, and Verdi’s Requiem were consistently reviewed with highest praise by the Boston press:

"[BYSO’s] performance of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony... moved me more than any other musical event of the season.  ... This was something different, the real thing, a genuine performance of a major work, brought ... with thrilling immediacy of communication.... the best thing of all was the consistent engagement with what the music means.  Conductor David Commanday can take substantial credit for that; he guided the work surely, kept it on track, built it to an emotionally overwhelming conclusion.      
Richard Dyer,  The Boston Globe  

An invitation from the Singapore Ministry of Education to consult on youth orchestra management resulted in four trips to the Asian nation. There Commanday gave chamber music and cello master classes, adjudicated the annual Singapore National Youth Festival, and conducted the SNYO in the premiere Esplanade concert series.  He has held faculty positions at Harvard University, Boston University, MIT, Montclair State University, and Eureka College, and was tenured Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Commanday graduated Harvard University cum laude, with studies in psychology, music and languages. He played principal cello at Tanglewood under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and Aaron Copland, and their influence led him toward conducting. At Harvard he founded the Lowell House Waltz concert tradition and directed the Lowell House Opera in Weber's Der Freischütz.  He then trained at the University of Vienna guided by Otmar Suitner, General Musikdirektor of the Berlin Staatsoper.  There he was awarded the Austrian Staatsdiplom in orchestral conducting with highest distinction, following a final graduation performance conducting the Niederösterreichisches Tonkünstlerorchester  in Beethoven's Symphony No. 8.

Commanday’s language skills include fluency in English, German, and French, and he is conversant with Italian, Swedish, and Russian. David is married to Karla Commanday-Mirosav. They have three grown children, and live with CH Malibu Magic Scottish Terriers.