 |
Adam Oscar Stern (born 1955) is an American conductor. Born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States, Stern was trained at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. He received his MFA in conducting in 1977 at the age of twenty-one, the youngest music student in CalArts' history to receive a master's degree.
Following years as a freelance conductor, composer and pianist, Stern served as Assistant Conductor (1992–1996) and Associate Conductor (1996–2001) of the Seattle Symphony, as well as Music Director of the Northwest Chamber Orchestra (1993–2000). [1] Stern has guest-conducted throughout the United States, including engagements with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Boulder Philharmonic, Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Michigan State University, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, the New York Chamber Symphony, Philharmonia Northwest and the Sacramento Symphony. From 2001 to 2005, Stern was the music director and conductor of the Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra. [2] From 2005 to 2014, Stern was the music director and conductor of the Port Angeles Symphony, during which tenure he introduced dozens of works to the orchestra's repertoire and was credited with raising its playing standards to unprecedented heights.
He has been the Music Director of the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra since 2003, and Music Director of the Sammamish Symphony Orchestra since 2014. In July 2016 he guest-conducted the "Pops" concert at the Oregon Coast Music Festival, and was named the Festival's permanent Associate Conductor/"Pops" Conductor a few days later.
A devotee of unjustly neglected works, Stern is particularly noted for his frequent performances of English music, especially that of Ralph Vaughan Williams. He led the first Seattle Symphony performance of Vaughan Williams' Pastoral Symphony in 1996; In January 2007, he and the Seattle Philharmonic presented the Northwest premiere of the same composer's final symphony, No. 9. Stern has also led Seattle, Northwest, West Coast, U. S., and world premieres of works by Elsa Barraine, Caroline Berkenbosch, Mélanie Bonis, Aaron Copland, Roque Cordero, Richard Danielpour, Nana Forte, Gina Gillie, Ruth Gipps, Gustav Holst, Helvi Leiviskä, Karl Nord, Richard Peaslee, Goffredo Petrassi, Gerard Schurmann, Rodion Shchedrin, Paul Stanhope, James Tenney, Aurelio de la Vega, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.
Stern's compositions include The Fairy's Gift for narrator and chamber ensemble (available on the Delos label), Partita Concertante for bassoon and wind ensemble, and Fanfare Pastorale, written for the Seattle Philharmonic. He has composed incidental music for numerous dramatic production in Los Angeles and Seattle. His music for the theater includes incidental scores for productions of Richard III, The Winter's Tale, King Lear, The Pillowman, Art and A Christmas Carol. His setting of Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Snow Queen for narrator and string quartet, with text adapted by Marta Zekan, was premiered by the St. Helens String Quartet and Ms. Zekan at a concert of the Seattle Chamber Music Society in February 2014. Spirits of the Dead, a "rhapsody for narrator and orchestra" based on the early poem of Edgar Allan Poe, was premiered in October 2014 with narrator Edmund Stone and the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra under Stern's direction. Stern's most recent work, Crossroads for string quartet, received its premiere by the Serendipity Quartet on December 18, 2016.
Stern was the recording producer for the majority of recordings made by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony. Stern won a 1991 Grammy Award for "Classical Producer of the Year". [3]
Stern has performed as a pianist in concertos by Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Gershwin, and in chamber music performances of repertoire from the Baroque era to the present day.
In 1980, Stern appeared in the Richard Dreyfuss film The Competition . In 2006, he was The Narrator in staged performances of Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat at the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and in 2015, he returned to Orcas Island as The Reciter in performances of William Walton's Façade conducted by James Paul.
From 2009 through 2015 he was on the faculty at Cornish College of the Arts, where he taught composition, conducting, orchestral repertoire studies and history of film music. [2]
He has conducted the background scores to numerous films, including Runaway Jury, Heist, Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Rider, Bee Season, Millions, Clifford's Really Big Movie, The Gift and Just Visiting.
Stern was a music copyist for composers Frank Zappa, David Diamond, Gerhard Samuel and Leonard Rosenman.
A lifelong Democrat, Stern has resided in Seattle since 1992.
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Richard Danielpour is an American composer.
Robert Nathaniel Mann was a violinist, composer, conductor, and founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, as well as a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, the first violinist at Juilliard, served on the school's string quartet for over fifty years until his retirement in 1997.
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical music composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus. For his notable students, See: List of music students by teacher: R to S#Bernard Rands.
Jaime Laredo is a violinist and conductor. He was the conductor and Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and he began his musical career when he was five years old.
Milton Katims was an American violist and conductor. He was music director of the Seattle Symphony for 22 years (1954–76). In that time he added more than 75 works, made recordings, premiered new pieces and led the orchestra on several tours. He expanded the orchestra's series of family and suburban outreach concerts. He is also known for his numerous transcriptions and arrangements for viola.
Heiichiro Ohyama is a Japanese conductor and violist.
Margaret Brouwer is an American composer and composition teacher. She founded the Blue Streak Ensemble chamber music group.
The George Enescu Festival, held in honor of the celebrated Romanian composer George Enescu, is the biggest classical music festival and classical international competition held in Romania and one of the biggest in Eastern Europe. Enescu's close associate George Georgescu organized the first festival in 1958; highlights included a performance of Bach's Concerto for Two Violins with Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh as soloists and a staging of Enescu's sole opera, Œdipe, with Constantin Silvestri conducting.
Robert Xavier Rodríguez is an American classical composer, best known for his eight operas and his works for children.
Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer.
Michael Rosenzweig, is a South African composer, conductor and jazz musician.
The conductorless orchestra, sometimes referred to as a self-conducted orchestra or unconducted orchestra, is an instrumental ensemble that functions as an orchestra but is not led or directed by a conductor. Most conductorless orchestras are smaller in size, and generally perform chamber orchestra repertoire. Several conductorless orchestras are made up of only strings and focus primarily on string orchestra repertoire. Conductorless orchestras generally come from the classical music tradition and perform standard repertoire, but many conductorless orchestras promote or specialise in contemporary classical music repertoire. Many contemporary classical music ensembles also regularly perform without a conductor.
Victoria Ellen Bond is an American conductor and composer.
Richard Fleischman is an American violist and viola d'amore player, conductor and pedagogue.
Kenji Bunch is an American composer and violist living in Portland, Oregon. Bunch currently serves as the artistic director of Fear No Music and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic.
Gregory Rose is a conductor, composer, arranger, and music director. He has conducted orchestral, choral and ensemble premieres throughout Europe and the Far East.
The Pasadena Symphony and POPS is an American orchestra based in Pasadena, California. In 2010 it took up residence at the Ambassador Auditorium, where its Classics Series runs from October through April. Since 2012 it performs a summer series at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden from June through September.
Black conductors are musicians of African, Caribbean, African-American ancestry and other members of the African diaspora who are musical ensemble leaders who direct classical music performances, such as an orchestral or choral concerts, or jazz ensemble big band concerts by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. Conductors of African descent are rare, as the vast majority are male and Caucasian.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
