The Manhattan Chamber Orchestra is a chamber orchestra based in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States.
The orchestra was founded in 1987 by Richard Auldon Clark, who remains the Artistic Director and conductor. The orchestra performs music of all genres with a special focus on contemporary music by American composers. It performs an average of eight concerts per season in New York City and also tours. [1]
It has premiered and/or recorded the music of William Grant Still, Alec Wilder, Victor Herbert, John Rutter, Henry Cowell, Alan Hovhaness, Otto Luening, Dominick Argento, Randall Thompson, Eric Ewazen, David Amram, and Dave Soldier.
The Manhattan Chamber Orchestra has released 30 CDs on the Newport Classic, KOCH International, AVANT, VOX, Helicon, KLEOS Classics, and Mulatta Records labels. It records an average of three new CDs per year. [1]
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, often referred to simply as LaGuardia or "LaG", is a public high school specializing in teaching visual arts and performing arts, located near Lincoln Center in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. Located at 100 Amsterdam Avenue between West 64th and 65th Streets, the school is operated by the New York City Department of Education, and resulted from the merger of the High School of Music & Art and the School of Performing Arts. The school has a dual mission of arts and academics, preparing students for a career in the arts or conservatory study as well as a pursuit of higher education.
David Liebman is an American saxophonist, flautist and jazz educator. He is known for his innovative lines and use of atonality. He was a frequent collaborator with pianist Richie Beirach.
Michael Harrison is an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist living in New York City. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 2018–2019.
Timothy Cobb is the American current principal double bassist with the New York Philharmonic. He previously taught at the Peabody Institute of Music, and joined the Manhattan School of Music faculty in 1992. Cobb also currently teaches at SUNY Purchase, Lynn University, Rutgers University: Mason Gross School of the Arts, YOA Orchestra of the Americas, and Mannes School of Music Preparatory Division. He is the current chair of the double-bass department at the Juilliard School, where he has been on faculty since 2002.
Stephen Stubbs is a lutenist and music director and has been a leading figure in the American early music scene for nearly thirty years.
The Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) is an American chamber orchestra based in New York City, formed in 1974. The orchestra performs at several venues in New York City, including, Carnegie Hall, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Saint Thomas Church (Manhattan), Congregation Emanu-El of New York, and Merkin Concert Hall.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra founded in 1996 by artistic director Gil Rose in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Natalia 'Saw Lady' Paruz is a New York City-based musical saw player, bell ringer, busker and film maker. She was the founder and director of the annual Musical Saw Festival in New York City and ran it for 11 years. She also organized the musical saw festival in Israel. She was a columnist of the 'Saw Player News' and a judge at international musical saw competitions. She was also a judge for Music Under New York and for Little Island at Pier 55.
Roger Kleier is an American composer, guitarist, improviser, and producer.
Dave Pietro is an American saxophonist, woodwind artist, bandleader, sideman, composer and educator. A native of Southboro, Massachusetts, he has been on the New York City music scene since 1987.
Richard Auldon Clark is an American conductor specializing in music by contemporary composers. He is Conductor and music director of both the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, which he founded in 1987, and the Butler Symphony Orchestra. He has premiered over 100 works and recorded over 40 CDs. His repertoire is of little known older works and new music by such composers as Randall Thompson, Victor Herbert, Michael Schelle, Henry Cowell, Alan Hovhaness, Lukas Foss, David Amram, Dave Soldier, Miho Sasaki and Osvaldo Lacerda. He also performs music of earlier periods, including works by Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Ibert, Verdi, and others. He is founder / music director of the annual Finger Lakes Summer Chamber Music Festival in upstate New York. He is also the head of the orchestral program at the Jordan College of Fine Arts at Butler University.
Sean Osborn is a former clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and a regular substitute in the clarinet section of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. He has been a student of Stanley Hasty, Frank Kowalsky, and Eric Mandat.
Richard Rood is an American Grammy Award-winning violinist based in New York City. His career has spanned classical music, chamber music, contemporary jazz, and commercial music including Broadway and film soundtracks.
Bernadette Speach is an American avant-garde composer and pianist. Known for her minimalist approach, she often synthesizes improvisation and through-composed material.
Jethro Marks is a Canadian/American classical violist. He is the founding violist of the Zukerman Chamber Players and the Principal Violist of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.
David Eaton is an American composer and conductor who has been the music director of the New York City Symphony since 1985. He has also been an active composer and arranger, with 101 original compositions and over 900 arrangements and original songs to his credit. He has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras in Asia, Canada, Israel, Europe, Central and South America, Russia, Ukraine and the United States. His compositions and arrangements have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the United Nations and by orchestras in the United States, Asia, Israel, South America and Europe. He also served at the conductor of the historic Goldman Band from 1998 to 2000 conducting the ensemble in concerts throughout the New York metropolitan area including performances at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. From 2018 to 2024 we was the principal conductor of the Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra in South Korea. In 2022 he self-published his first book, What Music Tells Me: Beauty, Truth and Goodness and Our Cultural Inheritance.
Stefano Miceli OMRI is an Italian classical conductor and pianist.
Nicholas Goluses is a professor of classical guitar at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. Goluses has held the Andrés Segovia Chair at the Manhattan School of Music, as the founder and chair of that school's guitar department. He has recorded seven albums for Naxos including "Bach: Sonatas Transcribed for Guitar" and "Sor: Fantaisies / Progressive Studies." He is one of the only guitarists to have transcribed and recorded all three of Bach's violin sonatas. James Jolly in the Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010 wrote that Goluses' Guitar Collection: Sor set "a benchmark for present-day guitarists.”
Maxine Neuman was an American cellist based in New York City.
Gene Pritsker is a Russian-born composer, guitarist, rapper and record producer living in New York City. He moved to the United States with his family in 1978 and lived in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He attended the Manhattan School of Music from 1990 to 1994 where he studied composition with Giampaolo Bracali.