Category: Who’s In

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director MARIN ALSOP has signed a five-year contract renewing her commitment to the orchestra from September 2010 through August 2015. She has led the BSO since September 2007, when she began her tenure as its twelfth music director. In announcing the new contract, Chairman Michael Bronfein noted that Alsop had “done more than just revitalize the organization and deliver unforgettable performances; she has renewed the orchestra’s purpose, challenging us to deepen the long-term impact we as an orchestra have in the communities we serve by making music more accessible and relevant to everyone’s life.”

Marin Alsop photo by Grant Leighton

Posted June 4, 2009

Virginia’s Fairfax Symphony Orchestra has announced the names of officers and directors elected at its Annual Meeting on June 3. THOMAS M. BROWNELL, a partner in the law firm Holland & Knight, will serve as president for a one-year term beginning July 1.

Posted June 4, 2009

Philharmonia Taiwan, also known as the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, has appointed SHAO-CHIA LÜ music director designate for the period August 2009-June 2010, with an anticipated continuation of his tenure for five seasons. Lü has served as general music director of Germany’s Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz and Staatsoper Hannover. He has appeared as a guest conductor with Philharmonia Taiwan for several years, and has also conducted such organizations as Komische Oper Berlin, Australian Opera Sydney, English National Opera, and Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. A native of Taiwan, he received his training in Taipei, at Indiana University, and at the College of Music in Vienna. Lü made his debut as a concert conductor in 1994 with the Münchner Philharmoniker. 

Posted June 3, 2009

The Bremerton (Wash.) Symphony Association has announced the appointment of ALAN FUTTERMAN as music director, effective with the 2009-10 season. Futterman is music director of the Chamber Orchestra at Academy of Music Northwest (Edmonds, Wash.) and for ten years was on the music faculty of Central Washington University. He has served as assistant conductor under Vladimir Kin in St. Petersburg, Russia, and participated in master classes with Sir Georg Solti and Leonard Bernstein. Also an active composer, Futterman holds a bachelor’s degree from Manhattan School of Music and a master’s from The Juilliard School, with additional graduate studies in musicology and linguistics.   

Posted June 3, 2009

ROBERT FRANZ will lead his final concerts as resident conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra this summer. In his four seasons with the BPO he has created and conducted programs for family, education, pops and classical concerts, garnering a BPO/Erie County Music Educators Association Award in 2008 and playing a major role in activities for which the orchestra was awarded the League of American Orchestras/ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming that same year. From 1997 to 2006 Franz was associate conductor of the Louisville Orchestra, where his work in education contributed to that orchestra receiving the Bernstein Award in 2001. Franz remains music director of the Boise Philharmonic in Idaho and the Mansfield Symphony Orchestra in Ohio, and is now completing his first season as associate conductor of the Houston Symphony.  

Posted June 3, 2009

The Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, based in New London, has announced the appointment of TOSHIYUKI SHIMADA as its fifth music director, effective July 1. Since 2005 Shimada has been music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, a post he will retain. He is also music director laureate of the Portland (Me.) Symphony Orchestra, which he led from 1986 to 2006, and since 2007 has been artistic adviser to the Tulare County Symphony Orchestra in California. Shimada was associate conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra for six years beginning in 1981. He has guest conducted numerous orchestras in the U.S. and Europe, and has recorded for Vienna Modern Masters, Capstone Records, Albany Records, and Naxos. His teachers have included Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Herbert Blomstedt, Hans Swarovsky, and Michael Tilson Thomas. Shimada was a finalist in the 1979 Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition and a conducting fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute in 1983.

Posted June 2, 2009

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has appointed JEFF COUNTS vice president of artistic planning. His background includes senior management posts with the Florida Orchestra and, most recently, Utah Symphony | Utah Opera, where he was vice president of artistic operations. Counts, who holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of South Florida, began his career as a public school music teacher. He has also maintained an active schedule as a freelance horn player. He was originally known as Jeff Bram, and along with his brother Chris recently assumed the surname of their stepfather, the man by whom they were raised.

Posted June 2, 2009

The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra has selected MATT CATINGUB as principal pops conductor to succeed MICHAEL KRAJEWSKI, who held that post from 2000 to 2008. Catingub has been conductor of the Honolulu Symphony Pops since 1998, and he appeared with the New Mexico Symphony in its Very Merry Pops holiday concerts in December 2008. In addition to his conducting activity, Catingub is a saxophonist, woodwind artist, pianist, vocalist, composer, and arranger. His work has been heard in the film A Beautiful Mind, and more recently in the George Clooney film Good Night, and Good Luck, a recording of which was honored with a Grammy Award. 

Posted June 2, 2009

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has announced the appointment of RONALD ZOLLMAN as director of orchestral studies in the School of Music, effective this fall. Zollman will also serve as an associate professor of music and director of CMU’s flagship ensemble, the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic. He succeeds Juan Pablo Izquierdo, who stepped down in 2008 following a seventeen-year tenure. Zollman attended the Royal Conservatory of Music in his native Belgium, receiving further training in conducting under Igor Markevitch and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He has appeared as guest conductor with numerous European ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Residentie Orkest, and Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. Zollman received a Golden Record award for his recording of the soundtrack to Le Maître de Musique, a film nominated for Best Foreign Picture at the Academy Awards.

Posted June 2, 2009

The Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra, based in Munster, has announced a three-year extension of KIRK MUSPRATT’s contract as music director. Muspratt is now completing his ninth season at the helm of the orchestra, where he has instituted several successful programs such as a solo competition for children, an Orchestral Fellowship Program in partnership with Valparaiso University, and a Music Educators’ Night that invites area teachers to be honored guests at an orchestral concert. He was also instrumental in founding the South Shore Summer Music Festival, where the NISO performs free concerts in communities around Northwest Indiana, and in establishing collaborations with Chicago’s Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center and Hubbard Street 2 Dance Center.   

Posted June 2, 2009