Shira Samuels-Shragg

American conductor Shira Samuels-Shragg is the newly appointed assistant conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, beginning in the 2024/25 season. Shira was recently selected for The Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute, and as a 2024 mentee of the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship. Shira is currently the assistant conductor for the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, while completing her second season as assistant conductor with the Plano Symphony Orchestra. Recently, Shira guest conducted interdisciplinary concerts with the Spokane, Corpus Christi, Irving, and South Bend symphony orchestras. She is passionate about sharing the wonders of music with young audiences and has led education concerts with the Spokane and Plano symphonies for over 60,000 students, served as cover conductor for Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, and co-founded Plano Symphony’s Summer Youth Orchestra Camp.

Shira co-founded the Youth Orchestra Camp with PSO’s Education Director, Dr. Jennifer Wheeler, with whom Shira has launched multiple other new community initiatives.

Shira joined Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the USA 2022 as their Assistant Conductor for their New York residency and tour across Europe with Daniel Harding. Shira was one of NYO’s inaugural conducting apprentices as a high schooler in 2015, and was delighted to return seven years later as their assistant.

In May 2022, Shira graduated with her Master of Music in orchestral conducting from The Juilliard School, where she studied with David Robertson. While there, she served as assistant conductor to guest artists such as Barbara Hannigan and Sir Antonio Pappano. As co-conductor of the Juilliard Lab Orchestra, Shira made her Alice Tully Hall debut.

Shira holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music with a minor in German Studies from Swarthmore College, where she studied conducting with Andrew Hauze, and piano with Marcantonio Barone. While at Swarthmore, she served as Music Director for the world premiere of Cassandra, an opera by composer Thomas Whitman and poet/librettist Nathalie Anderson. This experience deepened Shira’s desire to continue using music to uplift women’s voices and stories, and solidified her love of opera.