CONDUCTORS

Joann Falletta

August 2

Multiple Grammy Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center, and Artistic Adviser of the Hawaii Symphony. Recently named as one of the 50 great conductors of all time by Gramophone Magazine and among the top 10 conductors today by David Hurwitz of ClassicsToday.com, she is hailed for her work as a conductor, recording artist, audience builder and champion of American composers.

As Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American ensemble. She has guest conducted over a hundred orchestras in North America, and many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.

With a discography of over 125 titles, JoAnn is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual Grammy Awards, including the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance as Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic in the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s “The Passion of Yeshua”. In 2019, she won her first individual Grammy Award as Conductor of the London Symphony in the Best Classical Compendium category for Spiritualist, her fifth world premiere recording of the music of Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan with the BPO received two Grammys in 2008, and her 2020 Naxos recording with the BPO of orchestral music of Florent Schmitt received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award.

Falletta is a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has served by Presidential appointment as a Member of the National Council on the Arts during the Bush and Obama administrations and is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards. She has introduced over 500 works by American composers, including well over 100 world premieres. ASCAP has honored her as “a leading force for music of our time”. In 2019, JoAnn was named Performance Today’s first Classical Woman of The Year.

After earning her bachelor’s degree at Mannes, Falletta received master’s and doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School.

KEN-DAVID MASUR

August 9

Noted for his keen musical intelligence, imaginative programming and unmistakable charisma, Ken-David Masur is in his fourth season as Music Director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

In the 2022/2023 season, Masur’s Milwaukee Symphony programming explores the natural world and its relationship to humanity. He conducts major works including Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and continues the second year of an MSO artistic partnership with pianist Aaron Diehl. As Principal Conductor of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the academy orchestra of the Chicago Symphony, Masur leads concerts in Orchestra Hall and programs throughout Chicago including an annual Bach Marathon.

In 21/22, Masur made debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic and Kristiansand Symphony. Following the gala opening of Milwaukee’s newly restored Bradley Symphony Center, which was telecast nationally over PBS, highlights of the MSO season included an original staged production of Peer Gynt in partnership with director Bill Barclay. In the summer of 2022, Masur debuted at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and he returned to Tanglewood to lead the Boston Symphony, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Branford Marsalis, and James Taylor in a 90th birthday celebration of John Williams.

Masur has conducted distinguished orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago and Detroit Symphonies, l’Orchestre National de France, and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo. He has also made regular appearances at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Hollywood Bowl, and at international festivals such as Verbier.

Previously, Masur was Associate Conductor of the Boston Symphony, where he led numerous concerts at Symphony Hall and at Tanglewood. He has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Munich Symphony, and was also Associate Conductor of the San Diego Symphony and Resident Conductor of the San Antonio Symphony.

Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned dozens of new works, many of which have premiered at the Chelsea Music Festival, an annual summer music festival in New York City founded and directed by Masur and his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur, which is frequently featured among the New York Times’ best classical picks of the season.