Alan Heatherington (born 1945) is one of the leading orchestra conductors in Illinois. He has conducted and/or played with virtually all of the major orchestras in the Chicago area. He was the Music Director of Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, the Lake Forest Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Master Singers, and is Music Director Emeritus of all three ensembles.
Heatherington grew up in Rochester, New York. He began his musical training at age five, first in piano and later in violin, voice, and conducting. While still in high school, he studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. [1] He later turned down a scholarship at Eastman to attend Houghton College in New York and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Bannockburn, Illinois (now part of Trinity International University). [2] He received a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University in 1974. While at Northwestern, he studied conducting under Margaret Hillis and Bernard Rubenstein and violin under Chicago Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Samuel Magad, winning the honors competition.
Heatherington made his debut at Carnegie Hall with the Delft Trio in 1981. He conducted the Chicago String Ensemble from 1977 until 1995.
Heatherington has taught extensively at colleges and universities. He taught Biblical studies, theology and music at Moody Bible Institute from 1969 to 1979. From 1981 to 1986, he was director of orchestral conducting and string instruction at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1988, he became associate professor of music at North Park University, remaining there until 1993. [1] He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and DePaul University.
From 1995 to 2003, he was Director of Music Ministries at the First Presbyterian Church in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was conductor of the professional choir at Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago from 1992 to 2000. He was the Artistic Director and co-conductor with Weston Noble and Alice Parker of the Innsbruck International Choral Festival from 2000 to 2004. He was Music Director of the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra from 1995 to 2014 and the Lake Forest Symphony from 2000 to 2013, and is Music Director Emeritus of both orchestras. For 31 years he served as Music Director of the Chicago Master Singers (1989-2020), leading the internationally acclaimed chorus in hundreds of Chicago area performances and on 13 European concert tours in England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and the Netherlands.
He has been engaged as guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (“members of” concerts); Chicago Civic Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Hollywood Studio Orchestra, Northwest Indiana Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, the New Philharmonic, Missouri Symphony Society, Traverse Symphony, Light Opera Works, Skokie Valley Symphony, Northbrook Symphony, Mozart Orchester Salzburg, National Gallery Orchestra in Washington DC, West Bohemia Symphony Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, North Czech Philharmonic, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, Krakow Opera, and the youth orchestras of Buffalo, Omaha, McHenry County and the Illinois Music Educators Association.
Heatherington has conducted in most of the major cultural capitals of Europe, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Budapest, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Tallinn, Riga, Berlin, Munich, Warsaw, Krakow, Ljubljana and Zagreb.
In 2013, Heatherington resumed his seminary studies, earning a Diploma in Anglican Studies from Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Nashotah, Wisconsin in 2014. He was ordained Priest in the Anglican Church in North America in February, 2017, and is now vicar of Grace Anglican Fellowship (Diocese of Christ Our Hope) in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Heatherington is among the most highly regarded and revered choral and orchestral conductors in Chicago. He is also a distinguished professional violinist. He is particularly known for bringing a microphone on stage and delivering an impromptu introduction and commentary on one or more of the pieces the orchestra is performing. [3]
John von Rhein, formerly the Chicago Tribune's classical music critic, reporting on an Ars Viva concert, wrote that "Heatherington knows precisely what he wants and has the leadership skills to bring his musical ideas alive through a solid ensemble that includes numerous Chicago Symphony players in key positions." [4]
In 2005, Maestro Heatherington was named the Conductor of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras. He was named by the Chicago Tribune as a Chicagoan of the Year for 2004. In 2006, the Lake Forest Symphony, which he then directed, was named Illinois Orchestra of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras. In 2010 he received the Cultural Leadership Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Illinois Council of Orchestras, for "sustained leadership, extending beyond his own organizations and community, that has profoundly impacted the state of the Arts in Illinois." He received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Chicago Classical Review in 2013 and was honored by the Steinway Society of Chicago "for notable and distinguished contribution to the arts."
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
Claudio Abbado was an Italian conductor who was one of the leading conductors of his generation. He served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera, founder and director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, founder and director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, founding artistic director of the Orchestra Mozart and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra.
Frederick Fennell was an American conductor and one of the primary figures who promoted the Eastman Wind Ensemble as a performing group. He was also influential as a band pedagogue, and greatly affected the field of music education in the US and abroad. In Fennell's New York Times obituary, colleague Jerry F. Junkin was quoted as saying "He was arguably the most famous band conductor since John Philip Sousa."
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical 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.
Emory Brace Remington (1892–1971) was a trombonist and music teacher. His unique method made him one of the most well-known and influential trombone educators in history. He was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1923 to 1949, and on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY from 1922 until his death in 1971.
Semyon Mayevich Bychkov is a Soviet-born American conductor. He is currently chief conductor and artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic.
The Portland Youth Philharmonic (PYP) is the oldest youth orchestra in the United States, established in 1924 as the Portland Junior Symphony (PJS). Now based in Portland, Oregon, the orchestra's origin dates back to 1910, when music teacher Mary V. Dodge began playing music for local children in Burns, Oregon. Dodge purchased instruments for the children and organized the orchestra, which would become known as the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra. After touring the state, including a performance at the Oregon State Fair in Salem, the orchestra disbanded in 1918 when Dodge moved to Portland. There, Dodge opened a violin school and became music director of the Irvington School Orchestra.
The Bienen School of Music is the music and performance arts school of Northwestern University. It is located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, United States.
Walter Hendl was an American conductor, composer and pianist.
Chosei Komatsu is a Japanese conductor who, from 2003-2010, was Artistic Director of Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica. Also, after five years as Music Director of Japan’s Central Aichi Symphony Orchestra, he assumed the title of Conductor Laureate.
Archibald Clyde Roller was an American music professor, conductor, and oboist.
Donald Nally is an American conductor, chorus master, and professor of conducting, specializing in chamber choirs, opera, and new music. Nally has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards, of which he has won 3. He is the current director of Choral studies at Westminster Choir College, and conductor of the professional new-music choir, The Crossing, based in Philadelphia.
David Alan Miller is a multi-Grammy Award-winning American symphony orchestra conductor, and since 1992, music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Miller served as assistant and associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1987–92 and music director of the New York Youth Symphony from 1982-88. He is currently also Artistic Advisor to both the Sarasota Orchestra and to The Little Orchestra Society in New York City.
David Chester Itkin is an American conductor and composer. He served as music director and conductor of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra from 1993 to 2010, and currently holds the title of conductor laureate of that orchestra. He is music director and conductor of the Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra and professor of music and director of orchestral studies at the University of North Texas College of Music. University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra.
Andrew Keith Wailes is an Australian conductor and music director. Winner of the Australasian International Choral Conducting Competition in Brisbane in 1999, he is the current artistic director and Chief Conductor of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Melbourne University Choral Society, and music director and Conductor of the Box Hill Chorale. From 1999 to 2020 he served as artistic director of The Australian Children's Choir, and for a decade was Director of the Australian Catholic University Melbourne Campus Choir. He is a former president of the Australian Intervarsity Choral Societies Association, and is a former Artistic Administrator and artistic director of The Chamber Strings of Melbourne.
Kevin R. McMahon is an American, orchestra/opera conductor, composer/orchestrator/arranger, clinician/adjudicator, and violinist.
Alan Emanuel Pierson is an American conductor. His parents are Elaine Pierson and Edward S. Pierson, the latter an engineering professor at Purdue University Calumet. In Chicago Pierson took piano and composition lessons at the People's Music School, graduating high school at Francis W. Parker. Pierson is a 1996 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with degrees in music and physics. At MIT, he was a timpanist and an assistant conductor with the MIT Symphony Orchestra, and also a composer.
Victor Yampolsky is a Russian-born conductor and the son of pianist Vladimir Yampolsky. He was most recently director of orchestras at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music, a position he had held from 1984 to 2022. He is the music director emeritus of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, where he was music director from 1995 to 2004. He also is the music director of the Peninsula Music Festival and the honorary director of the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Before his appointment to the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, Yampolsky served as the principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa and as the resident conductor of the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the training ground for younger musicians under the auspices of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Keith Alan Lockhart is an American conductor. He is the Conductor of the Boston Pops orchestra, the Chief Guest Conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the Artistic Director of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina.
Kenneth Kiesler is an American symphony orchestra and opera conductor and mentor to conductors. Kiesler is conductor laureate of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra where he was music director from 1980 to 2000 and founder and director of the Conductors Retreat at Medomak. In 2014, Kiesler was nominated for a Grammy Award for his recording of Darius Milhaud's opera L'Orestie d'Eschyle. He is director of orchestras and professor of conducting at the University of Michigan.
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.
