Jose Lorenzo "Joe " Reyna Jr. 2018 has been named the national winner in The American Prize in Orchestral Conducting in the college/university orchestra division in 2024.

The Filipino conductor has been gaining recognition in the United States and Asia and has been hailed as the “Filipino Toscanini” (The Manila Bulletin) due to his panache and artistry on the podium. Reyna began as the Assistant Conductor of the Lamont Symphony Orchestra and Opera Theatre in 2022, and later joining the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra in the same role.

After his first season, Reyna garnered a promotion as Associate Conductor for the Denver Philharmonic’s 2023-2024 season. Reyna's formal training began at the University of the Philippines College of Music, where he studied with renowned conductors Chino Toledo and Rodney Ambat, where he became the first student admitted to their rigorous orchestral conducting undergraduate program in over thirty years.

In 2019, Reyna went to Japan and served as the conducting apprentice of Yuri Nitta with the Yamanashi Symphony Orchestra while pursuing his liberal arts studies at the Yamanashi Gakuin University. His conducting training continued in 2022 at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver under conductors Brett Mitchell and Lawrence Golan, where his debut project was directly working as the assistant conductor of the Grammy Award-winning composer, Eric Whitacre.

Reyna currently serves as the conducting apprentice to Peter Oundjian and has recently been appointed as the new Cover and Assistant Conductor of the Aurora Symphony Orchestra for their 2024-2025 concert season in the state of Colorado.

The American Prize national competitions is the United States' most comprehensive series of contests in the performing arts. Artists from all over the United States compete annually for the coveted awards, representing hundreds of communities and arts organizations across all fifty states. Aside from conducting, The American Prize is awarded in several categories - American music, arts administration, composition, instrumental soloist, piano, voice, wind ensemble, chamber ensemble, chorus, theater, stage direction and orchestra.

Sources: Denver Philharmonic Orchestra website, Lamont Symphony FB page and The American Prize website and blogspot