DAHLAN FOAH

Dahlan Foah has combined his talents in music and the visual arts with a prescient ability to work with emerging technologies to become one of the founding members of the audiovisual/multimedia industry. As the principal audiovisual consultant to the United Nations for over 30 years, Mr. Foah brought a powerful artistic sensibility combined with financial management skills to exhibitions, Visitors’ Centres and World’s Fair pavilions as well as many productions and installations for corporate clients. He began his working partnership with Honora Foà in 1989.

Managing multi-million dollar budgets and contract negotiations engendered a second career as a small business consultant. He was awarded the Crystal Peach by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

From the age of five, Mr. Foah studied piano with Mme. Lina Calibi, the accompanist to Bidu Sayao, and Gabriella Bezansoni. He also studied conducting with Maestro Enrico Leide, who was the founder of the original Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Community Orchestra. Later, interested in photography, he became an assistant to Ansel Adams, which made his combination of musical and visual skills ideally suited for the emerging audio-visual industry.

His current focus is primarily as a cultural entrepreneur. He is producer and music director for Creativity in Captivity, the RecombinantDNA  project and other new works and is well known as an advisor to emerging companies and artists.

All along, Foah has kept his early musical training alive and well, and currently is Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of two orchestras — MusicAAtlanta, a professional orchestra and the Atlanta Musicians’ Orchestra, a community orchestra. Recently Foah has conducted Beethoven, Strauss, Debussy, Stravinsky and others.

In 2010, Mr. Foah conducted the Christchurch, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Town Hall, Christchurch in works by Mendelssohn, Haydn and Vivaldi.

In 2014, he conducted the World Premiere of L’Anniversario by Lucas Richman. In 2022 Foah and his wife, Honora commissioned Lucas Richman to compose, ‘Un Pasto con Luciana and Mario’ - a concerto for violin, cello and orchestra, in honor of Foah’s parents. Dahlan conducted the World Premiere of Un Pasto at Spivey Hall with Kenn Wagner, violin and Nirav Patel, cello, as soloists. Foah has been instrumental in championing new musical ideas and organizations in Atlanta.

In 2017, he produced The Birth of Color: A Marriage of Darkness and Light in Budapest, Hungary and is now working on the second and third operas in the Frequency Opera cycle, Field of Desire and Blood&Breath, Magdalen in Altamira as Executive Producer.