About this Artist

Damon Gupton is the newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Gupton served as American Conducting Fellow of the Houston Symphony and held the post of assistant conductor of the Kansas City Symphony. His conducting appearances include the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Pops, National Symphony Orchestra, Ft. Worth Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, and Orquesta Filarmonica de UNAM. He led the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra on two national tours with performances at Carnegie Hall, and he conducted the finals of the Seventh Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition in 2016 and will return to Cliburn again in 2020. Gupton received his Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Michigan, and he studied conducting with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin at the Aspen Music Festival and with Leonard Slatkin at the National Conducting Institute. Awards include the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize and the Aspen Conducting Prize. Gupton is the inaugural recipient of the Emerging Artist Award from the University of Michigan School of Music and Alumni Society.

An accomplished actor, Gupton graduated from the Drama Division of the Juilliard School. He has had roles in television, film, and on stage, including the Broadway production of Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Clybourne Park, the Ovation and L.A. Drama Critic’s Circle award winning Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Mark Taper Forum. Gupton’s television credits include series regular roles on Black Lightning, Criminal Minds, The Player, The Divide, Prime Suspect, and Deadline as well as guest or recurring appearances on Dirty John, Goliath, Bates Motel, The Newsroom, Suits, Empire, and Rake, as well as Damien Chazelle’s Academy Award-winning films Whiplash and LaLa Land.