2012 Season Conductors
Sewanee Symphony:
Week 1: Kenneth Kiesler
Week 2: Larry Rachleff
Week 3: Courtney Lewis
Week 4: Victor Yampolsky
Cumberland Orchestra:
Week 1: Perry Holbrook
Week 2: Jason Seber
Week 3: Jason Seber
Week 4: Octavio Mas-Arocas
Sewanee Symphony Week 1
Kenneth Kiesler is one of the most prominent conductors of his generation, and one of the world’s most sought-after mentors to conductors. He has been Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the University of Michigan since 1995. He has conducted many of the world’s leading ensembles, led many world premiere performances, and directed several acclaimed recordings. Of his 2008 debut with L’Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, critic Roger Bouchard stated, “There do exist great American conductors, and Kiesler is one of them! Standing on behalf of the music he serves, he conducts from memory with unaffected gestures both precise and passionate. Nothing is unnecessary in his conducting; yet everything is there. Very beautiful work!” Kiesler is the founder and director of the Conductors Retreat at Medomak (Maine), an intensive summer training program for conductors of at all stages of their careers, the subject of a 2002 article in the Atlantic Monthly: “Conducting: A backwoods Guide.” Pianist Lorin Hollander said, “Mr. Kiesler’s ability to conjure up the creative energies of the works of music which he explores is nothing short of astonishing and the atmosphere of love and empowerment which envelops the community of musicians and conductors is beyond anything I have ever experienced.” Kiesler is Conductor Laureate of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra where, as Music Director from 1980 to 2000, he founded the Illinois Symphony Chorus and Illinois Chamber Orchestra, led debuts at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and won several awards. Since the summer of 2006, at the invitation of Music Director Pinchas Zukerman, Kenneth Kiesler has been Director of the Conductors Programme of Canada’s National Arts Centre. In early 2007, he was named Director of the Vendome Academy of Orchestral Conducting, in France.
Sewanee Symphony Week 2
Larry Rachleff has just concluded his sixteenth season as Music Director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. He also serves as Director of Orchestras and the Walter Kris Hubert chair at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston. During his career, he has also served as Music Director of the San Antonio Symphony.
“Music Director Larry Rachleff, a superb conductor with seasoned leadership skills. . . “ (John von Rhein Classical music critic, Chicago Tribune) Highlights of the 2011-2012 season will include guest conducting appearances with the Colorado, Indianapolis and Winnipeg symphony orchestras, among others. This past summer included guest conducting appearances at the Music Academy of the West, the Aspen Music Festival, where Mr. Rachleff served as guest director of their summer conducting academy and the Chautauqua Music Festival. Recent conducting engagements include the Charlotte, Columbus, Rochester, Florida ,Grand Rapids, Utah, Seattle, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Phoenix and Toledo symphonies, among many others, as well as a special gala with Itzhak Perlman and the Houston Symphony. Other summer festival engagements have included Tanglewood, Interlochen, Brevard Music Festival, Sarasota, Opera Theatre of Lucca, Italy and the Grand Teton Music Festival. In 1993, he was selected as one of four American conductors to lead the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall under the mentorship of Pierre Boulez.
Classical Voice of New England, in a review of the Philharmonic’s performance of Messiaen’s “Exotic Birds” wrote, “Mr. Rachleff led the group through a prickly mélange of tempi and shifting meters with such natural grace one would think he had written the piece himself.” Especially noted for his rich and productive rapport with orchestra musicians, the Salt Lake Deseret News noted about his recent appearance with the Utah Symphony: “His interpretation (Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony) was charged with power and passion that never waned. His reading was compelling, yet he also managed to bring out the lyricism that lies hidden beneath the boldness of the themes. What was especially remarkable, he conducted the work from memory.” “. . .last night was particularly stunning. The performance was so beautifully paced and balanced, at once powerful and intensely modest, and entirely coherent and inhabited from beginning to end. It was a perfect, exquisite arc, with such beautiful, committed, and (as my mother likes to say) low-key playing from all the sections.” Michael Steinberg, Professor of Music, Brown University re Philharmonic Mahler 3 performance.
A former faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory, where he was Music Director of Orchestras and Conductor of the Contemporary Ensemble, he also served as conductor of the Opera Theatre at the University of Southern California. He has conducted and presented masterclasses all over the world, including the Chopin Academy in Warsaw, the Zurich Hochschule, the Sydney and Queensland, Australia conservatories, the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory and Royal Northern College in the U.K.
Larry Rachleff is an enthusiastic advocate of public school music education. He has conducted All-State orchestras and festivals in virtually every state in the United States as well as throughout Europe and Canada. He has also served as principal conducting teacher for the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Conductors’ Guild and the International Workshop for Conductors in the Czech Republic.
As a dedicated advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Rachleff has collaborated with leading composers including Samuel Adler, the late Luciano Berio, George Crumb, Michael Daugherty and John Harbison, among others.
Mr. Rachleff lives in Houston with his wife, soprano Susan Lorette Dunn, and their young son, Sam.
Sewanee Symphony Week 3
Courtney Lewis, who became the Minnesota Orchestra’s associate conductor in September 2010 after one year as assistant conductor, has worked with orchestras and chamber ensembles from London to Venezuela, earning recognition as one of today’s top emerging conductors. During the Orchestra’s 2011-12 season he will lead the Young People’s and Target Free Family Concert series, and he will make his debut on the Orchestra’s subscription series, conducting fully staged performances of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel in November as well as two distinct orchestral programs in February. In July 2011 Lewis was one of only four conductors from around the world selected by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for its 2011-12 Dudamel Fellowship Program. For ten weeks in winter and spring 2012 he will work alongside Music Director Gustavo Dudamel and musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he will also work with students in the orchestra’s education programs. In addition, he will conduct the ensemble in multiple performances in March 2012. Lewis is founding music director of Boston’s acclaimed Discovery Ensemble, a chamber orchestra with the mission of introducing inner-city school children to classical music while bringing new and unusual repertoire to established concert audiences. In 2009 he completed a two-year tenure as Zander Fellow with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, a prestigious conducting apprenticeship under the ensemble’s music director, Benjamin Zander. In November 2008 Lewis made his major American orchestra debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, leading a series of concerts and assisting conductor David Robertson. In recent seasons he has worked with the BBC Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra and Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, and at the New Hampshire Music Festival, as well as with smaller groups including the Nash Ensemble. In February 2011 he again conducted the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. During the 2011-12 season he will debut with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the Atlanta Symphony and will return to the Ulster Orchestra. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Lewis attended the University of Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and clarinet with Dame Thea King, graduating at the top of his year with starred first class honors. After completing a master’s degree with a focus on the late music of György Ligeti, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Mark Elder and Clark Rundell.
Sewanee Symphony Week 4
Esteemed teacher, conductor, and violinist, Victor Yampolsky serves as Carol F. and Arthur L. Rice Jr. University Professor in Music Performance at the Northwestern University School of Music, Music Director of the Peninsula Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, Music Director Emeritus of the Omaha Symphony, as well as the Honorary Director of the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Born in the Soviet Union in 1942, Yampolsky, the son of the great pianist Vladimir Yampolsky, studied violin with the legendary David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory and conducting with Maestro Nicolai Rabinovich at the Leningrad Conservatory. He was a member of the Moscow Philharmonic as both violinist and assistant conductor, under the direction of renowned Maestro Kyrill Kondrashin. Yampolsky emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1973, where a recommendation from conductor Zubin Mehta led to an audition for Leonard Bernstein, who offered Yampolsky his scholarship at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusets. Two weeks later, Bernstein offered Mr. Yampolsky a position in the violin section of the Boston Symphony. He was later appointed the orchestra’s principal second violinist. In 1977, Mr. Yampolsky became Music Director of the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was the conductor of the Young Artists Orchestra at Tanglewood. Two years later he became Adjunct Professor of Violin and Director of Orchestras at the Boston University School of Music. Since 1979, he has participated in the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax as violinist and conductor, celebrating the Festival’s 25 years with the performance of Oliver Messiaen’s Turangailia Symphony on June 13, 2004. Yampolsky has conducted over 70 professional and student orchestras throughout the world, including repeated engagements with orchestras in the United States, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and Chile.
Cumberland Orchestra Week 1
Perry Holbrook holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, a Masters of Music degree from Arizona State University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Wichita State University. He received his teaching credentials from the University of Georgia. Professional affiliations and memberships include: ASTA, MENC, GMEA, and the Atlanta Federation of Musicians, Local 148-462.
Dr. Holbrook has spent the last twelve years of his fifteen-year career at Walton High School. Since his arrival, orchestra enrollment has continued to increase from 130 to 275 string students. His groups have received four invitations to perform at The Midwest Clinic (2001, 2005, 2008, 2012), have received two invitations to perform at the ASTA National Conference (2009, 2012), and have performed five times at the Georgia Music Educators Association In-Service Conference (2001, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012). Dr. Holbrook’s groups have also traveled and performed internationally, participating in two European concert tours (2004, 2007). The international performances included cities of Austria (Salzburg, Vienna, Graz), Germany (Berlin), and the Czech Republic (Prague). String quartets (2009, 2010) from Walton High School have also performed in Spain (Salamanca).
Dr. Holbrook is active as a guest conductor. Summer conducting engagements have included the Sewanee Summer Music Festival (2011, 2012) and the Orchestra America Summer Symposium (2006, 2007). He has guest conducted honor groups in Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia. Dr. Holbrook has presented clinics at the Midwest Clinic (2006); the ASTA National Conference (2004, 2009); the Georgia Music Educators Convention (2006, 2010); and the Texas Music Educators Convention (2005). In 2007, he was the featured clinician at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention, presenting a series of five clinics. In addition to teaching orchestra, Dr. Holbrook teaches AP Music Theory. He was named the S.T.A.R. teacher of Walton High School in 2004.
Dr. Holbrook lives in Marietta, Georgia with his wife Chrissy, a middle school band director, and their daughter Bailey, a fifteen-year-old cellist. In his free time he can usually be found on a tennis court somewhere.
Cumberland Orchestra Week 2 & 3
Jason Seber recently finished his seventh season as Music Director of the Louisville Youth Orchestra. Under his leadership, the LYO has collaborated with many fine conductors and guest artists including Jorge Mester, Robert Franz, Caroline Goulding, Christopher O’Riley, Kit Armstrong, and Conrad Tao. He has also led the LYO in regional and state premieres of new works by acclaimed composers Joan Tower, Joseph Schwantner, and Jay Greenberg. In October of 2010, the LYO Symphony Orchestra performed with My Morning Jacket in front of 9,000 fans at the KFC Yum Center. As a result of this collaboration, Mr. Seber and the Symphony Orchestra were featured in the documentary “One Big Holiday”, which was released in May 2011 with the box set of My Morning Jacket’s new album Circuital. Mr. Seber also provided string arrangements for charts on Circuital, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album this year. LYO members have also had the opportunity to collaborate with the Louisville Orchestra, Walden Theatre, and Music Theatre Louisville during his tenure.
In addition to his position with the Louisville Youth Orchestra, Mr. Seber is also the Director of Orchestras at the Youth Performing Arts School (YPAS), a magnet school for the performing arts in Louisville, KY. Under his leadership, the YPAS Philharmonia has performed at the Orchestra America National Festival and with the Louisville Chorus. Students in the YPAS Orchestra program have gone on to study at many leading music schools, such as Indiana University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Juilliard, Eastman, and the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Seber served as Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra from 2005 to 2007 and still regularly returns to guest conduct. In 2008 he led a performance of the Cleveland Pops with Peter Cetera and figure skaters Sasha Cohen, Brian Boitano, and Todd Eldredge that was broadcast nationwide on NBC Christmas Day. He also served as Assistant Conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra in 2004, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestras from 2003-2005. He regularly guest conducts the Louisville Orchestra in their Making Music, OrKIDStra, Pops, Holiday, and Side-by-Side series. He has also guest conducted the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (SC), Keep Louisville Symphonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Mansfield Symphony (OH), Ashland Regional Ballet (OH), and Music Theatre Louisville. Mr. Seber has had the privilege of working with Shoshana Bean, Michael Cavanaugh, Caroline Goulding, Joyce Yang, Christopher O’Riley, and Conrad Tao. This summer he will conduct at Music Theatre Louisville (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, and return for a fifth year at the Baldwin-Wallace College String Camp.
Mr. Seber earned his MM in orchestral conducting from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a BM in violin and BME from Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music. In addition he spent five summers at the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestral Musicians in Maine. He studied conducting with Carl Topilow, Dwight Oltman, and Michael Jinbo and has conducted in master classes and workshops with Kenneth Kiesler, Louis Lane, Gustav Meier, Larry Rachleff, David Roberston, and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Cumberland Orchestra Week 4
Octavio Más-Arocas is a versatile and dynamic conductor whose achievements demonstrate his talent and musicianship.
Chosen by Kurt Masur, Mr. Más-Arocas was awarded the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship. Consequently, in September 2011 he traveled to Europe and worked as Maestro Masur’s assistant with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Helsinki Radio Orchestra. He also made his German conducting debut conducting the Leipziger Symphonieorchester sharing the podium in a concert with Maestro Masur. The offer came after Mr. Más-Arocas’ New York debut concert sharing the podium with Maestro Masur and the Manhattan School of Music Symphony.
An alumnus of the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, Mr. Más-Arocas won the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize in 2008 awarded by David Zinman. He is also the recipient of the 2007 Thelma A. Robinson Award from the Conductors Guild, a Prize Winner of the 2005 Third European Conductors Competition, and a winner of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain Conductors Competition. Mr. Más-Arocas has recently been invited to conduct the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra during the League of American Orchestras National Conference in Dallas.
In the last few years Mr. Más-Arocas has conducted orchestra across North and South America and Europe including the Leipziger Symphonieorchester in Germany, the Spokane, Toledo, Phoenix, Memphis, Kansas City, and San Antonio Symphonies, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Manhatan School of Music Symphony, the World Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Interlochen Philharmonic, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Philharmonic, the Rosario Symphony in Argentina, Kharkov Symphony in Ukraine, the National Youth Orchestras of Portugal and Spain, the Pescara Symphony in Italy, the Amsterdam Brass in the Netherlands, and the Ciudad Alcala de Henares Symphony.
Mr. Más Arocas has been assistant conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra, which he conducted in subscription, family, and pops concerts. With the NRO he worked closely with guest artists and conductors such as Leonard Slatkin. Other festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, and the Interlochen Music Festival. This summer he will conduct at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, at the Brazilian Winter Festival in Campinas, Brazil, and three concerts at the Interlochen Music Festival.
Mr. Más-Arocas has recently been named Director of Orchestras and Conductor of Opera at the Lawrence Conservatory of Music, Lawrence University. Beginning in September 2012 he will conduct and direct the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra, and opera productions.
In 2008 Mr. Más Arocas was named Music Director and Conductor of the renowned Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra. Since his appointment with the IAA Orchestra his performances have been featured on National Public Radio and have been streamed online. Mr. Más Arocas and the IAA have collaborated with such outstanding and diverse musicians as conductor Leonard Slatkin, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky, cellist Joshua Roman, Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal tubist Carol Jantsch, and the Latin band Tiempo Libre, among others. Last March Mr. Más-Arocas lead the IAA Orchestra on a national tour that included concerts in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Grand Rapids. In 2011, Mr. Más-Arocas co-hosted a new music festival at Interlochen that featured guest composer Steven Stucky. His exciting programming with the IAA Orchestra has included several premieres and commissions as well as fully staged ballets and major works of the choral-orchestral repertory.
Mr. Más Arocas served as assistant conductor at the Madrid Royal Opera House and conducted fully staged opera productions with the Bowling Green State University Opera. He leaded two national tours with the National Youth Orchestra “Templarios” of Portugal, served as member of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain conducting staff, and as assistant conductor of the Bowling Green Philharmonia, and was a regular guest conductor of the BG New Music Ensemble.
For two years, Mr. Más-Arocas studied conducting at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen with David Zinman who awarded him the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize. After a very successful workshop with Kurt Masur, the Maestro invited Mr. Más-Arocas to be his apprentice in Europe. Mr. Más-Arocas has also worked with other leading conductors and teachers such as Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, James Conlon, James Depreist, Jesús Lopez-Cobos, Gustav Meier, and Larry Rachleff. Mr. Más-Arocas holds degrees from Bard College in New York where he studied with Harold Farberman, the Accademia Musicale Pescarese in Italy with Gilberto Serembe, and has pursued doctoral studies at Bowling Green State University with Emily Freeman Brown.
An enthusiastic advocate of new music, Mr. Más Arocas has commissioned and premiered numerous works and was himself the recipient of the Bowling Green Composition Prize in 2007. He has closely worked with such composers as Steven Stucky, Jennifer Higdon, Joan Tower, Samuel Adler, Chen Yi, Michael Daugherty, and John Harbison among others.
www.octaviomasarocas.com
References for Photos:
Conductor Victor Yampolsky. Digital image. News. Peninsula Music Festival, 2012. Web. 9 Feb. 2012. <http://innafaliks.com/news/peninsula/>.
