Conductor, violist, and educator Nadya Potemkina directs Wesleyan University Orchestra and Concert Choir, coaches chamber ensembles, teaches instrumental conducting and orchestral literature, and is the music director of FluteFest and AD HOC BACH, both performance and community engagement initiatives. Professor Potemkina remains active as a violist and welcomes every opportunity to play chamber music with her colleagues and to perform works by student composers.

Prior to Wesleyan, Professor Potemkina enjoyed a number of guest-conducting opportunities, in the United States and abroad, with regional, community, and youth orchestras, served as an assistant conductor of The University of Memphis Orchestras, as the music director of Mid-South Young People’s Orchestras in Memphis, TN, and was a founding conductor of Memphis Occasional Orchestra, an all-volunteer community outreach ensemble.
Nadya Potemkina holds degrees in viola performance and pedagogy, and choral and instrumental conducting from Herzen State Pedagogical University (Saint Petersburg, Russia), The University of Northern Iowa, Ball State University, The University of Memphis, and is a member of NAfME and College Orchestra Directors Association. She has actively participated in a number of conducting masterclasses and workshops under the tutelage of Marin Alsop, Erin Freeman, David Itkin, Gustav Meier, Joel Smirnoff, Carl Topilow, Diane Wittry, and Victor Yampolsky. Nadya Potemkina is the first prize winner of the 2015 International Conducting Workshop and Competition (Roswell, GA), a finalist of The 4x4 Prizes in Composition and Conducting 2010 Competition (Norman, OK), and a recipient of the 2010 Young Conductor of the Year Citation from The American Prize.