Kedrick Armstrong, incoming music director of California’s Oakland Symphony. Photo by Scott Chernis.
In Tuesday’s (4/9) San Francisco Chronicle, Joshua Kosman writes, “The Oakland Symphony has named Kedrick Armstrong, the creative partner and principal conductor of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony in Western Illinois, as its next music director. Armstrong, 29, succeeds the late Michael Morgan, who died in 2021 after a 30-year career with the orchestra…. Armstrong is already well ensconced in the orchestra’s 2024-25 season, which begins Oct. 18 … He’s scheduled to conduct all but one of the season’s concert programs, with repertoire ranging from Debussy and Brahms to recent works by composers of color such as Shawn Okpebholo, Errollyn Wallen and Brian Raphael Nabors. ‘The committee was overwhelmed by Kedrick’s scholarship and curiosity about all kinds of music, from classical and jazz to gospel and hip-hop,’ Executive Director Mieko Hatano, said … Armstrong grew up in Georgetown, S.C. … ‘I started playing piano at a young age,’ he recalled, ‘and I was playing full time in local churches by the time I was 12 or 13. Music was the thing I dedicated my life to from early on.’… Armstrong went on to study music at Wheaton College in Illinois, and recently earned a master’s degree in conducting from the University of Colorado Boulder.”
