Enyi Okpara Calleva Assistant Conductor
Going into his second year with the BSO, the 2025/26 season will see Enyi conducting performances in various venues across the South and South West, as well as making his Royal Albert Hall debut with the orchestra for Classic FM’s 25th Anniversary concert. Highlights for the season also include debuts with Ulster Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Britten Sinfonia, London Symphony Orchestra, Multi-Story Orchestra, the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain and conducting the Black British Classical Foundation Opera Competition. He also returns to the London Schools Symphony Orchestra for their summer tour. Recent projects include performances with Chineke! Orchestra including collaborations with George the Poet and Ayanna Witter-Johnson.
In 2024, Enyi was one of six conductors selected to conduct the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as part of their Emerging Conductors’ Showcase and was Assistant Conductor for Royal Academy Opera’s production of Britten’s Albert Herring. In 2022, he was a finalist at the inaugural Weston Conductors Competition, during which he conducted the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and was also awarded the Young Conducting Scholarship with the national choral charity Sing for Pleasure in 2021.
Hugely passionate about music outreach, accessibility, and education, Enyi is the Artistic Director and Founder of Elysium Music. Founded in September 2021, Elysium is a charity dedicated to collaborative projects between young professional musicians and children. It bridges the gap between music in schools and conservatoire music-making through side-by-side projects, workshops and resources to provide school musicians with a real flavour of life as a professional musician.
Growing up in Camden, North London, Enyi’s musical journey started initially as a percussionist and saxophonist and member of the Camden Music Hub. Enyi studied for an MA in Orchestral Conducting with Sian Edwards at the Royal Academy of Music, where he held the Derek Butler Award. He graduated in 2024 with Distinction, was awarded a DipRAM prize for outstanding final recital, and won HRH Princess Alice, The Duchess of Gloucester Prize for exemplary studentship and performance. Enyi recently appeared on BBC Radio 3’s This Classical Life presented by Jess Gillam, and the podcast Things People Do, hosted by Joe Marler and Tom Fordyce.
The Calleva Assistant Conductor programme is funded by The Calleva Foundation, in memory of Jack Butt.



