 
Octavio Mas Arocas (Class of 2004) reports that he won a Competition in Spain for young conductors, the prize of which was to become a member of the Conducting staff of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain (JONDE), one of the best youth orchestras in Europe. Conductors such as Carlo Maria Giulini and Christopher Hogwood have guest conducted the orchestra. He was thus invited to conduct the JONDE in December and has participated in its last meeting in January. Visit them online at http://jonde.mcu.es/. Oscar Bustillo (Class of 2001) has been appointed Assistant Conductor to the Florida West Coast Symphony in Sarasota (Leif Bjaland, Music Director). He'll be conducting at least five pops series and eight children's concerts throughout the year. He'll also to guest conduct the Bridgeport (CT) Symphony in their annual Holiday Pops concert (December 6), and the Bozeman (MT) Symphony in February 2004 in a pair of family concerts. Visit him online at http://www.fwcs.org/about/bustillo.htm. Darko Butorac (Class of 2004) has been appointed Artistic Director and Conductor of the Missoula (MT) Symphony Orchestra (http://www.missoulasymphony.org/) Read the story at http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/05/25/news/local/news03.txt and visit Darko online at http://www.cal.nau.edu/music/html/facultypages/butorac.htm. Leslie B. Dunner (Class of 2003)has been appointed Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The Chicago Sinfonietta will serve as the official orchestra. This appointment makes Mr. Dunner the first Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Joffrey Ballet since the company was established in Chicago in 1995. He is the former Music Director of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra, the Dearborn Symphony, Principal Conductor of the Dance Theater of Harlem, Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic and Cover Conductor of the Chicago Symphony. Read a recent article about him here. Visit him online at http://www.parkerartists.com/NewPages/dunner.html. James Feddeck Class of 2006) The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee), reports that less than a year after he took the job of assistant conductor at the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, James Feddeck (Class of 2006) is getting a promotion. He will take on additional conducting duties in the 2008-09 season while music director and principal conductor David Loebel finishes his 10th and final year with MSO. In the 2009-10 season, Feddeck will assume the title of resident conductor as the MSO intensifies its search for a replacement for Loebel, who announced in January that he would leave the symphony. Feddeck, 24, conducts the Young People's concert series, the Family series and understudies Loebel and guest conductors. Next season he will continue those duties, but also will conduct a Chamber series concert, a Masterworks concert, the Elvis Birthday Pops and the Celtic Soul Pops concert, Symphony in the Gardens, the Sunset Symphony and several contracted concerts such as the Christmas concert of Handel's Messiah. Read the whole story here. Erin R. Freeman (Class of 2006) has been appointed to a two-year term as associate conductor of the Richmond (Va.) Symphony, effective next fall at the start of the orchestra's 50th anniversary season. Currently music director of the Richmond Philharmonic and director of orchestras at the Baltimore School for the Arts, she recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Gustav Meier. Freeman holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern University and Boston University, respectively. Visit her online at http://www.novoartists.com/freeman.htm. Lance Friedel (Class of 2001) has released a CD of music by Carl Nielsen, performed by the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra. Recorded in Denmark last Fall, the CD is available on the MSR Classics label, distributed by Albany Records. It is a collection of Nielsen's shorter works for orchestra, including the Maskarade Overture, the Helios Overture, Saga-Drøm, Pan and Syrinx, and the Aladdin Suite. According to Friedel, "The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra has a long and proud tradition of performing Nielsen under conductors like Thomas Jensen and Herbert Blomstedt. It was a joy and an honor for me to work with them on this recording." The CD will be available in stores and on the internet starting in October. More about it at http://www.msrcd.com/1150/1150.html. Since winning first prize at the 2001 Mario Gusella Conductors Competition in Italy, Friedel has been a frequent guest conductor in the US and in Europe. This is his first commercial CD; a second CD, with music by Czech composer J.B. Foerster, will be released by Naxos early next year. Robert Rene Galvan (Class of 2003) sent a review of his recent concert with the Springfield (Massachusetts) Symphony Chorus. Visit him online at the Springfield Symphony Chorus. Martin Garcia (Class of 2004) conducted the Montevideo Philharmonic on December 6 in their last concert of the 2004 season. The program included Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and La Mer, and Dvorak's violin concerto. Read an online review at http://www.klassicaa.com/magazine_Concierto_ver.asp?idNota=1214&idSeccion=2&idpais=1. On February 10 to 12, 2005, Martin was among the six semi-finalists at the First Latin American Conducting Competition organized by the Sao Paulo Symphony (Brazil). Their website is at www.osesp.art.br. On February 21, 2005, he conducted Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Montevideo Philharmonic. There are some nice pictures of it at http://www.klassicaa.com/magazine_ReSonancia_ver.asp?idNota=1830&idPais=1. Lawrence Golan (Class of 2003) has been named the Phoenix Symphony's next resident conductor. Golan brings a reputation as an innovative maestro with a proven record of attracting audiences. He has won an ASCAP award for innovative programming in 2004 as music director of the Lamont Symphony Orchestra at the University of Denver. He has built three orchestras from the ground up, including that of the Portland Ballet Company in Maine. In addition to Lamont and Portland, he also holds the Music Director post at the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestras. Maryellen Gleason, president of the Phoenix Symphony, has commented that Lawrence is "a captivating conductor, he's really good at communicating and he has a sense of confidence about what he's doing that I really like." Visit him online at http://www.lawrencegolan.com/. Maksim Kuzin (Class of 2006) has been named Music Director of the Krivoy Rog Music Theatre in Ukraine Maksim Kuzin (Class of 2002) has been selected by Symphony Magazine (http://www.symphony.org/) as one of their 2005 Emerging Artists. He is the recently appointed Music Director of Ricochet New Music Ensemble and Staff Conductor of the State Academic Operetta Theatre, both based in Kiev, Ukraine. Visit him online at http://www.jamesarts.com/kuzin/index.html. Sasha Mäkilä (Class of 2006) tells us that he has been appointed as an Assistant Conductor of the Orchestra National de France (http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/orchestres/national/accueil/) where he will work with their Music Director Kurt Masur. Visit Sasha at http://www.oopperaskaala.fi/cv/sashamakila.html. Sasha Mäkilä (Class of 2004) has been appointed conductor of the Orchestra of Russian National Library in St Petersburg, Russia. In Finland, he has started collaboration with the Helsinki Skaala Opera. In September 2005 he conducted the Finnish premiere of the opera Les Enfants Terribles by Philip Glass, and in March 2006 he premiered another Philip Glass opera with them, In the Penal Colony, based on a Franz Kafka short story. In November, 2006 Sasha Mäkilä will conduct a Finnish production of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof in a joint project between Sibelius Academy and Helsinki City Theatre. Sasha is currently working with the Russian National Library Symphony Orchestra (http://fontanka36.nlr.ru/concerthall/dir.html) and the Helsinki Skaala Opera (http://www.oopperaskaala.fi/cv/sashamakila.html). Mark Allen McCoy (Class of 2001) just returned from conducting the Polish Radio Orchestra in Szczecin (where he performed 2001 Competition jury member Linda Worsley's piece Sundance). Since the 2001 competition, he has conducted the Virginia Symphony and Toledo Symphony. His principal activity is being Music Director/Conductor of the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra in Virginia and Director of Orchestras at Towson University. Visit him on the web at http://loudounsymphony.org/personnel/mark-mccoy. Ivan Meylemans (Class of 2002) has a new website - visit him online at http://www.ivanmeylemans.com.
Jeffery Meyer (Class of 2003) he is leaving his post at South Bend, and taking up the position of Director of Orchestral Activities at Central Washington University in Washington State come fall. He writes, "I'm quite excited about it — seems like an excellent department in a beautiful part of the country." Rebecca Miller (Class of 2001) has been named resident conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (http://www.lpomusic.com/). From 2005 until August 17 of this year she served as American Conducting Fellow with the Houston Symphony as part of a national training program developed and managed by the American Symphony Orchestra League. Rebecca has served as assistant conductor with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Festival of Music, and is currently music director of The New Professionals Orchestra in London (http://www.newprofessionals.co.uk/), an ensemble she founded in 1999. Rebecca has just recorded her debut CD with The New Professionals for Mode Records (New York). They received a competitive grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the CD will include previously unrecorded string music of Lou Harrison including: premiere recording of his Concerto for Pi-Pa and Strings with world-renowned Silk Road Tour soloist Wu Man (for whom the piece was written), the first recording of Harrison's Suite no. 2 for Strings in its original version, and the first complete recording of his Suite for Symphonic Strings. The CD is to be released in mid - late 2004 by Mode Records - www.mode.com. Finally, Rebecca has been accepted to the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition, which will take place in May 2004 in Bamberg with the Bamberg Symphony. She is one of 16 chosen from 299 applications. Press release for this can be found at www.bamberger-symphoniker.de/gustav-mahler-dirigentenwettbewerb. Pierre Simard (Class of 2004) has been appointed as the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra's new Resident Conductor. Mr. Simard is currently the Artistic Director of Á tout chant Music Society and the Music Director of Choeur Laval; prior to that, from 1998 until 2003, Mr. Simard was the Music Director of the French Ontario Youth Symphony. He will join the CPO as its full-time Resident Conductor in September 2005; to coincide with the start of the CPO's 2005/2006 Season. Visit him online at http://www.nadyablanchette.com/frames/02_societe/03_psimard.htm. Viatcheslav Valeev (Class of 2004) was the Second Prize Winner of the at the First Gennady Rozhdestvensky International Competition of Conductors held in Sofia, Bulgaria, May, 2006 (http://www.genadyrozdestvensky.org). He was also the winner of the September 2004 Antonio Pedrotti International Competition of Conductors in Trento, Italy. Congratulations! C. Paige Vickery (Class of 2003) recently visited India to conduct the Bombay Chamber Orchestra. Featured works included Beethoven Symphony No. 2 and Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2. She will be working as Assistant Conductor of the Hot Springs Music Festival (along with Maksim Kuzin - Class of 2002) this Summer under the baton of Richard Rosenberg. She has also completed a concert with the New York Pops as Associate this past December, 2003. Visit her online at http://www.turnworld.com/artists/paige.htm.
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