Search Finalists
The Nashua Symphony Orchestra & Chorus's international search for a new music director has reached its final stages. During this season, four finalists will conduct regular season performances as part of the competitive application process. Please read about the finalists, Jonathan Schiffman, Karla Lemon, Jed Gaylin, and Jonathan McPhee below, hear their season performances and submit your feedback anonymously in the following form. We want to hear your thoughts and impressions!
Jonathan Schiffman, Conducts September 22, Cast of Characters
"To grow with an orchestra, to make music an important part of the community: Nashua is an ideal place for achieving these worthy goals."
Jonathan Schiffman has emerged as one of the most promising conductors on the international scene. His career was launched in 2004 as a result of winning 1st Prize in the 8th Antonio Pedrotti International Conducting Competition. Critics praised Mr. Schiffman as possessing a rare combination of "uncontestable musicality and impeccable technique". Following a rapid succession of successful debuts throughout Europe, Mr. Schiffman was recently named Music Director of the Orchestre Lyrique de Region Avignon-Provence, thus becoming at age thirty, one of the youngest conductors currently at the helm of a major French orchestra. Upcoming projects with this orchestra include international tours to the United States, Italy and Morocco, as well as a 2008 festival marking the one hundred year anniversary of Avignon-born composer Olivier Messiaen.
An active composer himself, Mr. Schiffman has also been especially involved in promoting new music. Last season he stepped in for Kurt Masur to conduct the European premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Dritte Doppelgesang with the Orchestre National de France. Recent projects in the United States include conducting the world premiere performance of Stravinsky's last work, entitled, Four Preludes and Fugues, recording Sarana Choi's Flute Concerto which took first prize in the 2002 ASCAP composers contest, and serving as head-juror of the 2005 Robert Black Memorial Composition Competition.
A native of New York City, Mr. Schiffman began studying cello at age five. While an undergraduate at Yale, Mr. Schiffman was appointed music director of the Yale Bach Society Orchestra & Chorus. Upon graduating with honors, Mr. Schiffman received a master's degree from Juilliard where he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller. In 2001, Mr. Schiffman made his professional conducting debut with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. His success there led to several return engagements as well as concerts with the National Symphony, Eugene Symphony, and Richmond Symphony orchestras. Mr. Schiffman currently resides in Paris, having originally moved there in 2003 to study composition with Narcis Bonet as a Fulbright scholar. For more information, please visit: www.jonathanschiffman.com.
Karla Lemon, Conducts October 20, Lightning & Fire
"Music gives wings to the imagination... I invite you to join us this evening to experience the passion and pathos of this thrilling program."
Karla Lemon has appeared as a guest conductor with numerous orchestras including the Santa Barbara Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, the Spokane Symphony, the Women's Philharmonic and the Berkeley Symphony. Last December Ms. Lemon made her New York debut in Alice Tully Hall as conductor with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. During the 2007-08 season she will appear as a guest conductor with the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus and the Nashua Symphony. Ms. Lemon was Director of Orchestras and Music Director of the Alea II Ensemble for Contemporary Music at Stanford University for ten years. During that time she led the Stanford Symphony Orchestra on three international tours performing in major venues throughout the United States (including Carnegie Hall), Europe and China. Recent highlight performances have included collaborations with guest artists Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Christine Brandes, Fred Sherry, Maria Bachmann, Ida Kafavian and Richard Todd. Ms. Lemon has recorded for the Koch International, Albany, Innova, Vienna Modern Masters and Dorian labels.In addition to highly acclaimed performances of the standard repertoire, Ms. Lemon's name is associated with innovative programming and presenting works by living composers. As such she has conducted the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the "Works and Process Series" in New York City, the "Fresh Ink" series at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (midwest tour), Pittsburgh's Music from the Edge, the Empyrean Ensemble, the Oberlin Dance Collective, and the Scotia Festival in Halifax. She has premiered over thirty works by composers including Pulitzer Prize winners Melinda Wagner, Wayne Peterson, and Ellen Taffe Zwilich, as well as Chen Yi, Libby Larsen, John Corigliano, Philip Glass, Joan Tower, Peter Lieberson, and Eric Moe.
As an educator Ms. Lemon has served as the resident conductor of the Henry Mancini Institute, guest conductor with the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. She has offered master classes in conducting at the Mancini Institute and the Beijing and Shanghai Conservatories. Currently she is on the conducting staff at UC Davis teaching in the graduate conducting program.
Jed Gaylin, Conducts November 17, Unfinished Business
"These incredible works all leave ellipses... pointing to something beyond the notes on the page, transcending even how these sounds come to life in concert."
In the US, Europe, and Asia, Jed Gaylin is praised for performances characterized by insight, powerful sound, precision, expansive phrasing, and conviction. The Baltimore Sun wrote of him: "Jed Gaylin's conducting was consistently impressive, with a propulsive sweep that allowed the lyricism to linger." Since 1997, Mr. Gaylin has been Music Director of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, where he is credited with forging a formidable ensemble. He also holds, since 2003, the post of Principal Conductor of the prestigious Cape May Music Festival. He is Music Director of Hopkins Symphony (Baltimore) and works regularly with the Sibiu State Philharmonic (Romania).
A much sought-after guest conductor, Mr. Gaylin has appeared with orchestras including Shanghai Conservatory Orchestra, the Academia del Gran Teatre del Liceu for repeat engagements (Barcelona), the Bucharest Radio Orchestra, Sibiu State Philharmonic (Romania), the Lodz Philharmonic and Pomorska Philharmonic (Poland), and the Gnessin Institute Orchestra and Moscow Chamber Symphony (Russia), as well as the Orquesta Sinfonica de Guanajuato (Mexico). Guest appearances for 2007 include Orvieto Festival Orchestra (Italy), the Nashua Symphony (New Hampshire), and the National Television and Film Orchestra (Beijing), where he has been named Principal Guest Conductor.
In 2004, National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" featured an in-depth profile of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony. NPR aired selections of the orchestra's live performance of Petrouchka and Brahms' Symphony No. 1 to over four million listeners. Other radio broadcasts include the Voice of America airing the Bay-Atlantic Symphony throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union, a 2003 Bay-Atlantic Symphony performance aired repeatedly on NPR, and an all-Schubert concert with the Bucharest Radio Orchestra, played nationally in Romania.
Mr. Gaylin has received numerous awards as a conductor. He was chosen to work with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony in the first National Conducting Institute. Other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Conducting Fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival, the Presser Music Award, and membership in the National Musical Honors Society.
Jonathan McPhee, Conducts March 15, Inside Story
"I am looking forward to sharing these intimate and very personal portraits with the orchestra and audience. Irina Muresanu is a gem!"
Jonathan McPhee is equally at home as a conductor for the symphony, ballet, and opera. As Music Director for Boston Ballet, he has received critical acclaim for his work with the Company and Orchestra, which is the second largest musical organization in Boston. Mr. McPhee is also Music Director for the Lexington Symphony, Symphony by the Sea, in Marblehead, MA, and the Longwood Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra of Boston's Medical Community).
Guest engagements this past season include the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Plymouth Philharmonic, Youngstown Symphony, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife in Spain, and the Lithuanian National Orchestra. Other orchestras Mr. McPhee has conducted are the BBC Scottish Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, the Louisiana Philharmonic, The Hague Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre Colonne (Paris), the National Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway.
Mr. McPhee has conducted for many of the world's most distinguished dance companies including the New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet (England), Martha Graham Dance Company, National Ballet of Canada, and The Australian Ballet. In addition to a broad repertoire in the field of dance, Mr. McPhee has conducted pops concerts, musical theatre and operetta. He has also conducted grand opera with Opera Boston, the American Opera Center in New York, and Boston University Opera.
Mr. McPhee's works as arranger and composer are in the repertoires orchestras and ballet companies around the world. His edition of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is the only authorized reduced orchestration of this work. Mr. McPhee's compositions and arrangements are published by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. his edition of Stravinsky's complete Firebird for Boosey & Hawkes was recently performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony.
Born in Philadelphia, Mr. McPhee received his L.R.A.M. from the Royal Academy of Music, and a B.M. and M.M. from The Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, Mr. McPhee was the recipient of a Naumburg Scholarship in Conducting and English Horn. He has studied with Leonard Brain, David Diamond, Thomas Stacy, Rudolf Kempe, Sixten Ehrling, and master classes with Sir Georg Solti and James Levine at Juilliard.