Conductor Robert Franz, newly named music director of the symphony orchestra at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Photo by Mike Kovaliv.
“On Saturday, Saxton Rose, the dean of the school of music at UNC School of the Arts, announced that Robert Franz will be the new music director of UNCSA’s Symphony Orchestra,” writes Lisa O’Donnell in Monday’s (3/27) Winston-Salem Journal. “In that role, Franz will conduct three to four concerts with the Symphony Orchestra each year, working with students for three weeks in advance of each performance. The position, which had been vacant since 2018, gives Franz considerably more time on a campus he loves. A native of Davidson, Franz graduated from UNCSA in 1990 with a Bachelor of Music degree in oboe performance then became the school’s first graduate student in conducting, earning a Master’s in 1992…. Franz, 55, will add this job to two others he has held for years—music director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Canada and artistic director of the Boise Baroque Orchestra in Idaho. ‘I think it’s great for students to have a teacher who is in the professional world, and through osmosis they can see what it means to be a professional musician and how to prepare for that,’ said Franz.”
