At Firelands Symphony, Concertmaster Ron Brooker Is Named Executive Director
Category: Who’s In
Ana Papakhian Appointed Executive Director of Camerata Pacifica
Isaac Thompson Named President and CEO of Oregon Symphony
Shauna Quill to Step Down from New York Youth Symphony to Lead Music Academy of the West
Los Angeles Philharmonic Adds to Conducting Roster with New Assistant Conductor Plus Four Dudamel Fellows
The Los Angeles Philharmonic has appointed Rodolfo Barráez as assistant conductor for the 2023-24 season. Barráez will serve as cover conductor for Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel and guest conductors during the coming season and on tour, and will make his Hollywood Bowl debut in 2024. Barráez is a former Dudamel Fellow; Gustavo Dudamel, together with the LA Phil, created the Dudamel Fellowship Program in 2009 to help young conductors from around the world to develop their craft. The 2023-24 Dudamel Fellows are: Anna Handler, Ross Jamie Collins, Carlos Ágreda, and Michelle Di Russo. Learn more about the Dudamel Fellows here.
In addition to joining the LA Phil as assistant conductor in 2023-24, Berlin-based Venezuelan conductor Rodolfo Barráez will begin his second season as associate conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and start as conductor-in-residence at the Paris Opera. In 2022-23, Barráez led the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Münchener Kammerorchester on its tour of South America, and the Appassionato Orchestra at the Verbier Festival. He made his European debut at the Philharmonie Berlin in 2019 with the Hauptstadt Sinfonie-Orchester; other appearances include the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Hallé Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Simón Bolívar Symphony, Bogotá Philharmonic, Yucatán Philharmonic, Querétaro Philharmonic Orchestra, and Minería Symphony Orchestra. Future engagements include the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Paris Opera, and the Simón Bolívar Symphony. Barráez trained as a violinist at Venezuela’s El Sistema and earned a bachelor’s degree in conducting at the Universidad Nacional Experimental de las Artes de Venezuela and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in conducting at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.
Three New Assistant Conductors at Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra has promoted current Conducting Fellows Austin Chanu and Tristan Rais-Sherman to assistant conductors, effective immediately. In addition, Naomi Woo has been named assistant conductor beginning in the 2024–25 season.
Austin Chanu is a conductor, composer, and woodwind performer originally from the San Francisco Bay area. He is a recipient of the 2023 Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation US. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra subscription debut in April 2023, and has guest-conducted the Omaha Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He conducted for the LA Chamber Orchestra’s New Music Salon, served as a teaching artist and conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Associate Composer Program, and was a woodwind performer in LA. Chanu received a bachelor’s degree in music composition from the USC Thornton School of Music and holds a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the Eastman School of Music.
American conductor Tristan Rais-Sherman recently competed in the 2023 Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition with the Bamberg Symphony. He has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Rais-Sherman received the Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation US in 2022 and 2023. His educational work includes leading the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen, conducting guest master classes at the Philadelphia International Music Festival, and leading educational programs with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, and New England Conservatory Symphony. Rais-Sherman holds an artist diploma from the New England Conservatory, a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor’s degree in cello performance from Ithaca College.
After four years as assistant conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Canadian conductor and pianist Naomi Woo joined the Orchestre Métropolitain Montréal as artistic partner in the 2023–24 season. Recent engagements include the Orchestre Métropolitain, Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, and Ottawa’s National Arts Center Orchestra; two appearances with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, where she is a music director finalist; and a tour of England leading English Touring Opera in Rossini’s Cinderella. As an assistant/cover conductor, Woo works with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony, and conducts throughout Canada. Woo is a member of Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership program and participated in Orchestre Métropolitain’s orchestral conducting academy. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, and studied at Yale College, the Yale School of Music, and the University of Montreal.
Pittsburgh Symphony Promotes Assistant Concertmaster and Associate Conductors, Hires Musicians, Names New Board Members
In Thursday’s (7/20) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jeremy Reynolds writes, “There’s some new blood and a few promotions at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. On Thursday, the symphony announced that first violinist Justine Campagna, who joined the symphony in 2018, has been appointed assistant concertmaster. Assistant conductors Moon Doh and Jacob Joyce were promoted to the rank of associate conductor. The orchestra also hired two new musicians: Douglas Rosenthal as associate principal trombonist and Michelle Hembree as second horn. The symphony is continuing to replenish its ranks in the wake of the pandemic, when it was unable to hold live auditions to fill retirement vacancies. In addition to Rosenthal and Hembree, the symphony has hired five other musicians over the course of the previous season: second violinists Boxianzi (Vivian) Ling, Regi Papa and Carolyn Semes, and oboist Samuel Nemec. Additionally, Joshua Samuel Carr, trumpet, and Drew Collins, bass, are the new Paul J. Ross Fellows. The fellowship is a two-year pre-professional program intended to promote diversity in the orchestra. Such programs are becoming increasingly common around the country. Carr and Collins will begin playing with the orchestra in the fall. Finally, the symphony also announced 11 new members on its board of directors.”
Punta Gorda Symphony Names New Artistic/Music Director: Richard Stoelzel
Florida’s Punta Gorda Symphony has appointed Richard Stoelzel as artistic/music director. Stoelzel is trumpet player, conductor, and music teacher, and has founded chamber-scaled music groups. As a trumpeter, he performed with the United States Coast Guard Band, served as principal trumpet for the New Orleans Symphony, and was principal trumpet for the Punta Gorda Symphony for four years. He has appeared with Syracuse Symphoria in Syracuse, New York, and serves as principal trumpet with the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra. Previously, Stoelzel held the position of pops conductor at the HARID Conservatory in Boca Raton and was artistic/music director of the Florida Wind Symphony. Currently, he continues as artistic/music director of the Lakeshore Concert Band in Quebec, a position he has filled since 2016. Stoelzel holds a tenured professorship in trumpet and serves as the brass area coordinator at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal. He is the founder, first trumpet, and director of the Avatar Brass, and cofounded the New World Brass. Jennifer Bitner is executive director of the Punta Gorda Symphony.
New Principal Horn at Dallas Symphony
Daniel Hawkins has been named principal horn at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, beginning on September 1, 2023. Hawkins has held the position of utility horn with the San Francisco Symphony since 2017, serving as associate principal horn for the 2019-20 season. Hawkins previously played with the San Antonio Symphony, Houston Symphony, Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, Meadows Symphony Orchestra. and Southern Arkansas Symphony. Hawkins won first place in the International Horn Competition of America in 2022; was the award winner of the Music Teacher’s National Association Young Artist Competition in 2014; and won the Meadows School of the Arts Undergraduate and General Concerto Competition in 2012 and 2015. A native of Chandler, Texas, Hawkins began playing the horn at age 11, and studied at Stephen F. Austin State University at age 15. Hawkins studied at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University from 2012-2015, receiving a Bachelor of Music, and continued at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he received a Master of Music degree. Hawkins’s teachers include DSO Second Horn Haley Hoops, former DSO Principal Horn Greg Hustis, and William VerMeulen at Rice University.
New Haven Symphony’s Next Music Director: Perry So
In Thursday’s (7/20) New Haven Independent (CT), Brian Slattery writes, “The New Haven Symphony Orchestra has appointed conductor Perry So to be its next music director, beginning with the 2024-25 season…. So isn’t a stranger to New Haven. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he attended Yale as an undergraduate, where he studied literature, founded an orchestra, and conducted the undergraduate opera company. The NHSO was the first professional orchestra he heard in the U.S. He also met his wife, Anna Graber, here, and they lived here for 10 years while Graber got her PhD. So counts that his career started in New Haven—a career that has since taken him across the globe … ‘The level of musicianship [at the NHSO] is incredibly high,’ he says … So [succeeds] current music director Alasdair Neale, who So credits with spearheading the orchestra’s … forward-thinking, progressive stance on programming, one that expands the repertoire currently performed by most orchestras to include a diversity of composers from the past and a diversity of living composers … So doesn’t seek to burn the canon down, but to use the programming to interrogate the problems with it, and in the process, hopefully expand it.”