• Mikhail Agrest
• Daniel Meyer
• Steven Smith
• Marc Taddei
• Arthur Post
• Dorian Wilson
• Alastair Willis
• Christian Knapp
• Arthur Fagen

Read on for the full press release from the RSO.

(Richmond, Va.) The Richmond Symphony is inviting nine conductors, out of a field consisting of almost 250 applications, to compete for the opportunity to become the organization’s next music director. Beginning in Fall 2008 and lasting through Fall 2009, the nine candidates (bios below) will visit Richmond and work with the orchestra in many settings including public performances across all of its four concert series. In addition to seeing the candidates lead the orchestra in concert, the public will have the opportunity to meet the conductors at special events, pre-concert talks and weigh-in online and through surveys when the 2008-09 Season begins in September of this year.
A search committee representing key stakeholders from the RSO Board of Directors, musicians of the orchestra, and staff are guiding the process “The next 18 months provide us a great opportunity to include the community-at-large in the process as we select a new artistic leader,” said RSO Search Committee Chair Tracy Schwarzschild. “We value our constituents and the search committee wants to hear from the public on the qualities our next leader should possess to help advance the Richmond Symphony as we move back into the Carpenter Theatre at Richmond CenterStage.”

Current Music Director Mark Russell Smith will leave the orchestra at the end of the 2008-2009 Season after 10 years of service. “Mark’s tenure is distinguished by his great ability to build ensemble and artistic quality and his masterful leadership of the orchestra through an unprecedented time of transition after the Carpenter Theatre closed,” says RSO Executive Director David Fisk. “Transition in leadership is a natural progression in the life cycle of an orchestra. With the Carpenter slated to reopen as part of the Richmond CenterStage development, we are enthusiastic about the opportunities new leadership will bring to our community.”
Performance dates will be announced for 2008-2009 in mid-March. The first six listed below will conduct in 2008-2009 and the last three will visit Richmond Fall 2009. The new Music Director is scheduled to be named in late 2009. The nine candidates are as follows:

Mikhail Agrest
Agrest is a laureate of the Pedrotti International Conducting Competition and of the Mitropoulos Conducting Competition. He has appeared with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra among others. He enjoys a thriving career as a guest conductor, at home with both symphonic and operatic repertoire.

Born in St. Petersburg Russia, he moved to the United States in 1989 and studied at Indiana University.

Daniel Meyer
As Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Meyer conducts over 50 performances this season, including pops, community, and education concerts. Recently appointed Music Director of the Asheville Symphony, Mr. Meyer becomes only the fourth conductor to hold that position in the orchestra’s history. He also was recently appointed Music Director of the Erie Philharmonic. Mr. Meyer was awarded the 2002 Aspen Conducting Prize after his second season as a fellowship Academy Conductor at the Aspen Music Festival. He has conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, Utah, Forth Worth, San Antonio, Syracuse, Tallahassee, and Wheeling symphonies. Prior to his appointments in Pittsburgh, Asheville and Erie, Mr. Meyer was Assistant Conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he attended the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory and Boston University.

Steven Smith
Steven Smith has served as Music Director of Santa Fe Symphony & Chorus since 1999. He also serves as Music Director of the award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony, an ensemble devoted to the performance of contemporary music. From 1997-2003, Steven Smith served as the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, conducting subscription concerts, summer concerts and holiday programs. Orchestral guest conducting has included several seasons with New Zealand’s Auckland Philharmonia, and at the festivals of Aspen and Brevard. Additionally, Steven Smith has appeared with the Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, New Mexico Symphony, Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has also appeared with the orchestras of Akron, Annapolis, Colorado, Dayton, Hartford, Kalamazoo, Long Beach, Long Island, Memphis, Sacramento, Santa Rosa and Toledo.

A native of Toledo, Ohio, he attended the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Marc Taddei
After many years as Music Director of the Christchurch Symphony in New Zealand, Marc Taddei has taken up his new position in 2007 as Music Director of the Vector Wellington Orchestra in New Zealand’s capital city. Marc’s recent activities include engagements in Hong Kong, Oregon and New Orleans, as well as with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, which he took on tour in 2004. 2005 saw his first major tour with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, which led to an immediate invitation back to both premier and tour a newly commissioned ballet and score. In 2006 he made debuts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria in Australia, and with the Southwest Florida and New Haven Symphony Orchestras in the United States.

A graduate of The Julliard School, he has recorded for the Sony, BMG, and Columbia labels.

Arthur Post
As Assistant and later Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1994-1997, Arthur Post was a favorite with local and regional audiences, leading the PSO in subscription, Pops and educational concerts. From 1997-99 he served as Associate Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. Subsequently, he completed a one-year appointment as Resident Conductor of The New World Symphony, where he worked closely with Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Other international appearances include the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Singapore and Jerusalem symphony orchestras. In the United States, Mr. Post has led concerts with the Annapolis, Columbus, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Houston, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, San Antonio, Syracuse and Virginia Symphony Orchestras.

A graduate of or Yale University and The Juilliard School, his educational program, “Music on the inside” has been introduced in classrooms if four states.

Dorian Wilson
Dorian Wilson, one of Leonard Bernstein’s last students, first received international recognition at the 1989 Malko International Conducting Competition. As a result, he was asked to be the second conductor for the Moscow Philharmonic; an unprecedented appointment in Russia; making Wilson the first American guest conductor in fifteen years and, at 25 years old, the youngest conductor in their history. In 2005-2006, he was the chief conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra in Serbia. As recognized by the International Federation of Music Competitions, Wilson has won more International prizes for conducting than any other conductor. Since 1989 Wilson has won an additional 8 prizes in virtually every one of the world’s major competitions. He has appeared around the globe in the great halls of Paris, Rome, Moscow, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Berlin, and Seoul, Korea.

He has studied at Oberlin Conservatory, the University of Michigan, Indiana University and the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna.

Alastair Willis
Alastair Willis served as Resident Conductor of the Seattle Symphony from 2002-2003, after having held the post of Assistant Conductor of that orchestra since September 2000. He previously held the position of Assistant Conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras and Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra. Mr. Willis has appeared with the Chicago Symphony, , the St. Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, Oregon Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and San Antonio Symphony Additionally, in recent years he has made conducting debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Houston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Yo-Yo Ma personally invited Mr. Willis to conduct several performances of his Silk Road project at the Seattle Symphony

Born in Massachusetts, he graduated from Bristol University in England and later attended the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

Christian Knapp
Christian Knapp has performed in festivals and concerts throughout the world, conducting the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Civic Orchestra, among many others. He has collaborated with such renowned artists as Mstislav Rostropovich, Itzhak Perlman and Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg just to name a few. In 2003 he was selected to participate in the National Conducting Institute at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a project of the National Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin in collaboration with the American Symphony Orchestra League. An assistant conductor, he has worked extensively for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, Russian National Symphony orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. He also served as Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony leading many of its main series concerts.

Born in the United States, he graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music and later from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory in Russia.

Arthur Fagen
Athur Fagen is a respected figure on concert and opera podiums throughout Europe and the United States. Since 2002-03, Maestro Fagen has been the Music Director of the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dortmund Opera in Germany. Additionally, Mr. Fagen has conducted the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Nuernberg Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Czech Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Holland Sinfonia, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and Atlanta Opera. Arthur Fagen was first prizewinner of the “Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductors Competition.”

He was born in New York, attended the Curtis Institute under Max Rudolf and later studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has recorded for the BMG and Naxos labels.

ABOUT RSO
Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia. The Symphony has been a member of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Orchestra Program since its inception in 1999. As a non-profit corporation, the Richmond Symphony is partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Suzuki method and traditional

Tim Judd (BM, MM in Violin Performance, Eastman School of Music) is Suzuki certified and studied with Anastasia Jempelis, one of the pioneers of the Suzuki method in the United States.

Phone # (804) 353-0428

http://www.timothyjuddviolin.com

• City Ownership of the complex
• Opening Fall of 2009
• Shift $2M from Centerstage to Landmark

Here’s a Times-Dispatch article.

The last financial report published on the VAPAF.com website is from Feb. 2006. The final report from the “committee for the arts” is due to be submitted to Mayor L. Douglas Wilder by Dec. 31.

The Richmond Symphony has issued a full press release.

So what, that’s what professional Orchestras do, right? Only it wasn’t the management of the VSO that masterminded this campaign; it was the musicians themselves. As preparation for an upcoming collective bargaining endeavor, the musicians conceived, developed, and executed a very successful PR campaign designed to serve their immediate needs, complement the overall VSO PR strategy and establish a permanent, public voice for the musicians.

Here’s the musician’s website.

See this Polyphonic.org article for an inside look at this initiative.

TimesDispatch.com | Nashville’s plan for symphony hit right notes

The Times-Dispatch has an article.

UPDATE 5/4/06:

The committee has published it’s interim report. The bottom line is: $45M to refurbish the Carpenter Center, and if they can get an extra $20M, it would be used for a playhouse on the SE corner next to the Carpenter Center. According to the report, the $45M includes an orchestral shell, but not storage space.

The Times-Dispatch has a short article.

Several panel members are from the American Federation of Musicians’ symphonic services division; others are from some of our peer orchestras.