Category: Who’s In

The Music Conservatory of Westchester (White Plains, N.Y.) has announced the appointment of CAROL SHIFFMAN as executive director, effective July 1. She succeeds AARON FLAGG, who was recently named dean of The Hartt School at the University of Hartford. Shiffman has served most recently as dean of the Conservatory of Dance at the State University of New York-Purchase, and had previously chaired the Music Department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. She spent eleven years as senior grants officer for the California Arts Council and was founding artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Momentum Dance Company and Arts Center. Shiffman holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature with a minor in dance from the University of Rochester. She also completed graduate coursework in education, arts management, film and television at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Posted June 23, 2009

LUCIA MATOS, music director of the Northern Illinois University Philharmonic and the Opera Workshop at NIU, has been named to an additional post as music director and conductor of the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra, based in Spring Valley, Ill. The first woman to hold that title at the IVSO, she begins her tenure next season. Orchestra director at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh from 2003 to 2008, Matos had earlier served as assistant conductor at two professional orchestras in her native Brazil. She has appeared with numerous orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, and her first commercially distributed CD (with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra) was recently released by Cala Records. A semi-finalist in the Béla Bartók International Opera Conducting Competition, Matos studied conducting at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, and holds master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Iowa.

Posted June 19, 2009

The Tulare County Symphony, based in the central California city of Visalia, has announced the appointment of BRUCE KIESLING as music director, effective July 1. Kiesling is a film composer and orchestrator, resident conductor of the Greensboro (N.C.) Symphony Orchestra, and music director/conductor of the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra, with additional performance background as a pianist and harpsichordist. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and North Carolina School of the Arts, as well as a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.    

Posted June 19, 2009

MICHAEL BUTTERMAN has been named resident conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, effective in fall 2009. The orchestra’s associate conductor from 2000 to 2007, he is currently music director of the Boulder (Colo.) Philharmonic and the Shreveport (La.) Symphony, as well as principal conductor for education and outreach at the Rochester (N.Y.) Philharmonic. Butterman has served as guest conductor for numerous U.S. orchestras, opera companies, and festivals. He was a diploma laureate in the Prokofiev International Conducting Competition and a finalist in the Besançon International Conducting Competition. As recipient of the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship in 1999 he studied at Tanglewood Music Center with Ozawa, Robert Spano, and Jorma Panula. 

Posted June 19, 2009

SCOTT McINTOSH, acting principal trumpet in the Hartford (Conn.) Symphony Orchestra for the past two seasons, has accepted a tenured position as principal trumpet in the HSO. As a featured soloist he has toured the U.S. and Europe, and performs regularly in the New York City area; he also recently served as acting principal trumpet in the Harrisburg (Pa.) Symphony Orchestra. While a member of the Saturday Brass Quintet in 1990 he received First Prize in the Walter M. Naumburg Competition. McIntosh also received First Prize in the 1986 Korwin International Music Competition, and was a finalist that year in the Munich International Music Competition. A native of Illinois, he holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s from The Juilliard School.

Posted June 19, 2009

The Long Island Philharmonic has announced the extension of DAVID STEWART WILEY’s contract as music director and conductor through 2012. Wiley has led the orchestra since 2001, and also serves as music director and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra in Virginia.
 
Posted June 19, 2009

The Minnesota Orchestra has appointed COURTNEY LEWIS assistant conductor, effective with the 2009-10 season. He will succeed SARAH HICKS, who is now completing her third season as assistant conductor and will remain a member of the orchestra’s conducting roster. A native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Lewis holds degrees in composition and clarinet from the University of Cambridge and studied conducting with Sir Mark Elder and Clark Rundell at the Royal Northern College of Music. He served as a Zander Fellow at the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra during the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons, working with Music Director Benjamin Zander and also assisting him at several other orchestras. While in Boston he founded and directed the Discovery Ensemble, a chamber orchestra dedicated to introducing inner-city children to classical music. Lewis made his major American conducting debut last fall with the Saint Louis Symphony, leading a series of five concerts and subsequently assisting Music Director David Robertson as well as conductors Marc Albrecht and Yan Pascal Tortelier.

Posted June 16, 2009

The Music Foundation of Spartanburg (S.C.) has announced the renewal of SARAH IOANNIDES’s contract as music director of the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra through the 2011-12 season. Ioannides was named music director of the orchestra in 2005, and also serves as music director of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra.

Posted June 16, 2009

At the New York Philharmonic, ERIC M. GEWIRTZ has been promoted from publicist to assistant director, public relations, media and touring. JOSHUA MARCUM has been hired as publicist.

Posted June 16, 2009

The National Arts Centre in Ottawa has announced the appointment of JAYNE WATSON as chief executive officer of its fund-raising body, the National Arts Centre Foundation, effective August 10. Watson is currently the NAC’s director of communications and public affairs and corporate secretary of its Board of Trustees. She has more than twenty years of experience as a senior executive, political advisor, and consultant. Prior to joining NAC in 2001 she served as director of communications at Export Development Canada; she has also held senior communications roles in Canada’s House of Commons and at Canada Post Corporation.

Posted June 16, 2009