Michael Stern (born 17 December 1959) is an American conductor. He is currently music director of the National Repertory Orchestra (Breckenridge, Colorado) and of Orchestra Lumos. He is artistic advisor to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Iris Collective. He is music director laureate of the Kansas City Symphony.
Stern is the son of Vera Stern and the violinist Isaac Stern. He obtained his undergraduate degree in American history from Harvard College in 1981. Subsequently, he studied under conductor Max Rudolf at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, graduating in 1986. Stern also studied for one summer at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute and for two summers at the Pierre Monteux Memorial School in Hancock, Maine. [1] [2]
Stern was an assistant conductor with The Cleveland Orchestra from 1986 to 1991. [3] [4] In September 1986, he debuted at the New York Philharmonic as one of three young conductors in a conducting workshop with Leonard Bernstein. [5]
Stern has served as principal guest conductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon. From 1996 to 2000, Stern was chief conductor of the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, the first American chief conductor in the orchestra's history. His work there is also notable for the orchestra's many recordings of American classical music during his tenure, including discs of works by Henry Cowell and Charles Ives.[ citation needed ]
In 2000, Stern founded the IRIS Orchestra in Germantown, Tennessee, an ensemble specialist in American contemporary music. He served as its music director until 2022, and is now advisor to the renamed ensemble, the IRIS Collective.
In 2005, Stern became music director of the Kansas City Symphony. [6] During Stern's tenure in Kansas City, the orchestra moved to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in 2011. [7] In March 2014, Stern, the orchestra, and Engage Mobile Solutions used four pairs of Google Glass to record a performance of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. [8] He served in the post through the 2023-2024 season, [9] and is now music director laureate of the Kansas City Symphony.
In 2019, the Stamford Symphony (renamed Orchestra Lumos in June 2022 [10] ) appointed Stern as its next music director, effective with the 2020-2021 season, with an initial contract of five seasons. [11] In January 2021, the National Repertory Orchestra (NRO) in Breckenridge, Colorado announced the appointment of Stern as its next music director. [12] [13]
Stern has been married twice. His first marriage was to the oboist Jeannette Bittar. [14] The marriage ended in divorce. [4] Stern's second marriage is to Shelly Cryer. The couple have two daughters and resides in Connecticut.
The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., and globally known as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, it is one of the leading American orchestras popularly called the "Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization. Michael Tilson Thomas became the orchestra's music director in 1995, and concluded his tenure in 2020 when Esa-Pekka Salonen took over the position.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The BBC SO is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
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Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor.
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Daniel Hege is an American orchestral conductor. He is currently the music director of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and the Binghamton Philharmonic, and is the principal guest conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra. Hege previously served as the music director of the former Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. He also makes numerous guest appearances with orchestras and music festivals across the country.
The Kansas City Symphony (KCS) is an American symphony orchestra based in Kansas City, Missouri. The orchestra is a regular resident at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The orchestra performs a 42-week season, and is also the accompanying orchestra for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and the Kansas City Ballet.
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The Wichita Symphony Orchestra (WSO) is the oldest professional symphony orchestra in Kansas, performing out of Century II Concert Hall in downtown Wichita. It was founded in 1944.
Brett Mitchell is an American conductor, composer, and pianist. He is currently Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony and Artistic Director & Conductor of the Sunriver Music Festival.
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Kevin R. McMahon is an American, orchestra/opera conductor, composer/orchestrator/arranger, clinician/adjudicator, and violinist.
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The 55th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 10, 2013, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2012. The show was broadcast on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT and was hosted for the second time by LL Cool J. The "Pre-Telecast Ceremony" was streamed live from LA's Nokia Theater at the official Grammy website. Nominations were announced on December 5, 2012, on prime-time television as part of "The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live! – Countdown to Music's Biggest Night", a one-hour special co-hosted by LL Cool J & Taylor Swift and broadcast live on CBS from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. Fun, Frank Ocean, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Dan Auerbach received the most nominations with six each.
The National Repertory Orchestra (NRO) is an American summer symphony orchestra that offers full fellowships to train young professional musicians for careers in music through performances, masterclasses and workshops. Based in Breckenridge, Colorado since 1993, its members, who range in age from 18 to 29, are selected from auditions held each year throughout the United States. NRO presents a summer music festival including two orchestral programs per week conducted by its Music Director, Michael Stern. The orchestra was founded in 1960 by cellist and conductor Walter Charles. Carl Topilow was Music Director from 1978 - 2020 and continues with the orchestra as the Music Advisor. The NRO was formerly known as the Blue Jeans Symphony based in Estes Park, Colorado, and later as the Colorado Philharmonic Orchestra based in Evergreen, Colorado.
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.
Jonathan Leshnoff is an American classical music composer and pedagogue.
Finding Rothko is a composition for chamber orchestra by the American composer Adam Schoenberg. The work was commissioned by the Germantown, Tennessee-based IRIS Orchestra under the conductor Michael Stern. It was first performed by the IRIS Orchestra under Stern on January 13, 2007.
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