Category: Who’s In

Veteran arts administrator STEVEN SHAIMAN has been named the director of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra’s education and community engagement activities and the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. He joined the South Carolina-based organization in June. Shaiman succeeds HHIPC Director Mona Huff, who led the competition for over a decade. Previously, Shaiman served as senior vice president and director of artist management at Concert Artists Guild in New York City for more than 16 years. Prior to that, he worked at IMG Artists in various capacities for nearly 13 years, managing artists including Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, James Galway, André Watts, John Eliot Gardiner, The King’s Singers, and Canadian Brass. He has served for three decades as a trustee of the New York Youth Symphony, the organization with which he started his career as manager of operations, after earning a degree in arts management from Oberlin College. Following a hybrid working situation this summer, Shaiman and his wife, Laura, a seasoned music educator, will move from Long Island, NY, to the Lowcountry, SC.

Oregon’s Portland Columbia Symphony has appointed KEVIN IRVING as executive director, effective July 1, 2022. Irving succeeds Interim Executive Director Jane Kenworthy. Irving was most recently artistic director of Oregon Ballet Theatre, where he led the organization’s financial and artistic turnaround. Irving is a former modern dancer who moved into arts administration. He studied at the school of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in NYC, studied ballet in Canada, and danced for choreographer Twyla Tharp. Upon leaving the stage, Irving went to Madrid, Spain and became associate director of Spain’s national dance company under the direction of Nacho Duato, and then moved to Sweden to become an artistic director at the Gothenburg Opera House. Back in the U.S., Irving launched and ran a nonprofit that connected American teachers with Latin American dance communities, prior to becoming artistic director at Oregon Ballet Theatre in 2013. Steven Byess is music director of the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra, which performs in Portland and neighboring communities.

The San Diego Youth Symphony has appointed SAMEER PATEL as artistic director, effective on August 22, 2022. Patel was most recently associate conductor of the Sun Valley Music Festival in Idaho. From 2015 to 2019, he was associate conductor of the San Diego Symphony, where he led classical, education, community, and donor programs. Previous conducting appearances include the Grand Rapids Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Florida Orchestra, as well as return engagements with Knoxville Symphony and La Jolla Symphony. He recently completed a cycle as guest conductor for San Diego Youth Symphony’s Ovation pre-professional orchestras, an engagement he accepted prior to the organization’s conductor search. In addition to conducting SDYS’ most experienced students, Patel will work with the organization’s leadership team in setting pedagogical goals, community partnerships, and early-childhood music education. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Patel holds a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting and a Bachelor of Music in Orchestra and Opera Conducting/Theory. He furthered his conductor training with residencies in the U.S. and abroad. Patel participated in the League of American Orchestras’ 2013 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview.

CHELSEA GALLO has been named assistant conductor of the Florida Orchestra for the 2022-23 season. Gallo will lead the St. Petersburg-based orchestra’s youth and community concerts, conduct select pops and Morning Coffee concerts, and assist Music Director Michael Francis and other conductors. Gallo’s previous positions include assistant conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, conducting fellow with the Dallas Opera, and staff conductor with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In addition to the Florida Orchestra next season, Gallo will be a regular guest conductor with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Gallo studied conducting in Vienna, Prague, and Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia. In Vienna, she studied piano with Giorgi Latsobidze and violin with Barbara Gorzynska. Gallo holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, where she was awarded the Helen Wu graduate fellowship in conducting. She studied conducting at festivals and masterclasses and has been part of recording and performing projects for NASA, Lockheed Martin, the National Institute of Aerospace, and the European Space Agency.

The Oregon Symphony has appointed DEANNA THAM as associate conductor. Tham begins at the Oregon Symphony at the start of the 2022-23 season, succeeding Associate Conductor Norman Huynh. Tham is currently music director of the Union Symphony Orchestra in Monroe, North Carolina, assistant conductor of Florida’s Jacksonville Symphony, and principal conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras. She has previously served as assistant conductor of the Chicago Sinfonietta, music director of the Louisville Youth Orchestra, music director of the Boise Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and has regularly guest conducted with the Boise Philharmonic and Ballet Idaho. Tham has a professional studies certificate from the Cleveland Institute of Music in orchestral conducting and received her master of music from Northwestern University’s Honors Conducting Program. She also earned a bachelor of fine arts in horn performance from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2019, she was appointed assistant conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States (NYO-USA and NYO2) and has won conducting awards.

SUSAN HARTMANN has been hired for the newly created position of development associate at the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina. She will be responsible for securing all contributed revenue and developing long-term relationships between the orchestra and patrons, donors, businesses, and the larger community. Hartmann goes to the HHSO from the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, where she served as development administrator. The majority of her professional career was in sales and business development at technology companies including Hewlett-Packard, Ricoh, EMC, and Brother. She graduated from Rider College and was the administrator of the $3.5 million campus restoration capital campaign at St. Luke’s Church.

The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra has appointed STEVEN HANKLE as chorus director. He succeeds Hank Dahlman, who retires at the end of the 2021‒22 season after 25 years at the helm of the DPO Chorus. Hankle is assistant professor of choral music and music education at the University of Dayton, where he directs the mixed ensemble, University Chorale, and the treble choir, Bella Voce. Hankle is also a member of the choral faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, where he serves as the music director of the Alumni Choir. Prior to the University of Dayton, Hankle was choral and music education faculty at Penn State University from 2012 to 2015, where he directed the University Choir. A native of Chicago, Hankle is a graduate of San Francisco State University, where he studied choral conducting, and of Florida State University, where he completed his doctoral studies in choral conducting. The Dayton Philharmonic is part of the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, which includes the Dayton Ballet and the Dayton Opera.

The Florida Orchestra has named violinist JINA LEE as a teaching artist in its partnership with Pinellas County Schools that supports strings teachers and students in the classroom. As part of the Teaching Artist partnership, the orchestra also has resumed its Partner Schools initiative that was paused due to the pandemic. Lee joins teaching artist and violist Kaitlin Springer in the fourth full school year of the Teaching Artist program, in which professional musicians split their time between coaching in Pinellas classrooms and performing onstage with the Florida Orchestra. Lee grew up in Ithaca, New York, and received bachelor’s degrees in violin performance and recording arts and sciences as well as a minor in Spanish at the Peabody Conservatory and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. During her six years with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, she was active in community engagement events, as a teaching aide for BSO’s OrchKids program, and as a mentor through the BSO Orchlab program, coaching high school string orchestras. The Florida Orchestra’s two teaching artists visit several middle and high schools throughout Pinellas County and provide concentrated support to two partner schools each year. The Florida Orchestra performs in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater.