Highlights of Michelle Di Russo’s 2022/23 season include guest conducting debuts with the Portland (Maine) and Vermont symphony orchestras as well as cover conductor engagements with the St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra and Arizona Musicfest. The 2023/24 season will see debuts with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and Delaware Symphony Orchestra. Recently, Di Russo was a Joel Revzen Fellow at Festival Napa Valley, where she led the orchestra in concert cycles and the staging rehearsals for a production of L’elisir d’amore. 

Di Russo recently served as Interim Director of Orchestras at Cornell University, Assistant Conductor for the Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestra and cover conductor for the San Diego Symphony, Ballet Arizona and the Phoenix Symphony. She has also been a recipient of the American Austrian Foundation/Faber Young Conductors Fellowship (selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic) and a Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Conducting Scholarship at the Cabrillo Music Festival of Contemporary Music. She was a conducting fellow at the Cortona Sessions for New Music in Italy. 

Michelle Di Russo is a co-founder of Girls Who Conduct, an organization dedicated to bridging the gap between women and men in the conducting field and encouraging younger generations of women and non-binary conductors to overcome any obstacles based on gender.