The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. Klaus Mäkelä was named music director-designate in 2024, with his first contractual season to begin in 2027. The orchestra's most recent music director is Riccardo Muti, whose tenure spanned 13 seasons, from 2010 to 2023, and he continues to perform on occasion as director-emeritus. The CSO is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five".
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born American conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was especially noted for his free-hand conducting style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from the orchestras he directed.
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.
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).
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore SO has its principal residence at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where it performs more than 130 concerts a year. In 2005, it began regular performances at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda.
Opera Omaha is a major regional opera company in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1958, the professional company is widely known for the International Fall Festival events it held in the 1980s and 1990s, which garnered international attention and served as the U.S. and world premieres for a number of notable works. One of these performances, the 1990 U.S. premiere of the 1841 work Maria Padilla, was among the primary debuts for noted soprano Renee Fleming. "I’ve been calling all my singer friends and saying, 'You’ve got to sing for this company.'" Fleming said at the time. It has "a lot of vision." In 2007, the Toronto Star said "Opera Omaha has grown into one of the continent's most enterprising regional opera companies."
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Singapore. It is Singapore's flagship orchestra. Its principal concert venue is the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. The orchestra also gives concerts at the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, and performs over 60 concerts per year. The orchestra was first established In 1978 with Choo Hoey its resident director. The orchestra's music director from 1997 to 2019 was Shui Lan, and Hans Graf its Chief Conductor from 2020 and Music Director from 2022. The SSO is part of the Singapore Symphony Group, which also manages the Singapore Symphony Choruses, the Singapore National Youth Orchestra (SNYO), the VCHpresents chamber music series, the Singapore International Piano Festival and the biennial National Piano and Violin Competition. It achieved third place in 2021 for Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year award, and made the list of the BBC Music Magazine's Top 21 Best Orchestras in the World in 2022.
The Albany Symphony Orchestra is a professional symphony orchestra based in Albany, New York.
The Chelsea Symphony is an orchestra noted for its uniquely fluid hierarchy. Based in New York City, The Chelsea Symphony's members rotate as the ensemble’s own conductors, composers, and soloists. Each season, every conductor conducts a complete symphonic program with the group; each composer has a new work performed by the full orchestra; and every soloist performs a featured piece with the entire ensemble. The Chelsea Symphony gives most of its concerts at the German Church of St. Paul's.
Thomas M. Sleeper was an American composer and conductor. He was the Orchestra Conductor at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida from 1985 to 1993, and Director of Orchestral Activities and Conductor of the University of Miami Frost Symphony Orchestra until his retirement in 2018. He was also the director of the Florida Youth Orchestra from 1993 to 2020.
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 The Little Orchestra Society in New York City.
The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) is a youth orchestra organized by the San Francisco Symphony. The SFSYO performs an annual concert series and has made several recordings. The orchestra rehearses in Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall and has been directed by Daniel Stewart since the 2019-2020 season.
Thomas Alphonso Wilkins is an orchestra conductor. He is Music Director Laureate of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Artistic Advisor, Education and Community Engagement of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Virginia Symphony.
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.
Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.
The Classical Pops Festival is an annual outdoor festival held each December at the Apes Hill Club in Barbados. It draws inspiration from events such as Tanglewood in Massachusetts and the BBC Proms in the UK. The festival showcases a unique orchestra composed of principal players and members from various well-known symphonies.
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.
Edward "Teddy" Paul Maxwell Abrams is an American conductor, pianist, clarinetist, and composer. He is currently Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra and the Britt Festival Orchestra.
Polo Osvaldo Ernesto Piatti is an Argentine neo-romantic composer, concert pianist and conductor based in the United Kingdom. He is one of very few high-profile international musicians concentrating exclusively on the creation, performance and promotion of melodic, universally appealing classical music. His compositions are performed all over the world for their evocative and passionate character. Considered a pioneer performer of classical piano improvisations since his youth, he toured Europe, Asia, North and South America premiering his own works as a soloist, performing with international orchestras. Piatti is a member of the Royal Society Of Musicians Of Great Britain, the Ivors Academy and the British Music Society among others.
