INTERNATIONAL CONDUCTORS GUILD

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY EDWARDSVILLE
 

2025 String & Orchestra Educator’s
Conducting Workshop

October 24 – 26, 2025

The String & Orchestra Educator's Conducting Workshop offers
hands-on conducting sessions with the strings of the SIUE Orchestra.
 Active participants will conduct every day
and will receive coaching and video review sessions.

LOCATION: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville 

FACULTY:  

Dr. Sandra Dackow

 Sandra Dackow holds three degrees from the Eastman School of Music and was most recently Music Director of the Hershey Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania, the Hershey Symphony Festival Strings, and the William Paterson University Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey.

 An Aspen Conducting fellow, she was awarded the Silver medal in the 2001 Vakhtang Jordania/New Millennium Conducting Competition in Ukraine. Dr. Dackow has published over 100 works for student orchestras and is an author of Alfred’s Orchestra Expressions, Tempo Press’s Expressive Techniques for Orchestra, and a co-author of the MENC (NAfME) Complete String Guide.

Dr. Dackow has appeared as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator throughout the US and abroad, including summers at Interlochen, and other music camps. Sandra Dackow is a former President of the Conductor’s Guild (now the International Conductors Guild) an international organization serving conductors in 31 countries. In 2009 she was elected a Lowell Mason Fellow by MENC: The Association for Music Education, as well as awarded the Bruno Walter Best Conductor Prize by the Master Academy International Competition in Switzerland.

Dr. Michael Mishra

 Michael Mishra is currently Director of Orchestral Studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He has conducted worldwide, performing with the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Sofia, the Arpeggione Kammerorchester in Austria, the Orquesta Sinfonica Uncuyo in Argentina, the Saratov Philharmonic in Russia, the Kharkov Philharmonic in Ukraine, and the Karlovy Vary Philharmonic, Hradec Kralove Philharmonic, and at the Silesian State Opera in the Czech Republic. In 2004, he conducted the Daegu City Symphony in the premiere performance by a Korean orchestra of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2. Following this performance, the Yeong-Nam Daily wrote: “With flowing tempi and natural control of rubato, [Mishra] brought out beautifully the elaborate dialogues in Bruckner’s complexly woven collection of melodic lines. Maestro Mishra combined delicate analysis with musical charisma.” 

In 2003, Michael was awarded First Prize at the Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition in Ukraine. He was also a semi-finalist at the 2015 Blue Danube Opera Conducting Competition in Bulgaria.   

In the field of opera, Michael has conducted productions of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Midwest Lyric Opera), Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado and Gounod’s Faust (Winter Opera St. Louis) and concert productions of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. He has served on the faculty of the Conductors Guild’s Conducting Workshops for String Educators and has twice been invited as a guest lecturer in conducting at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston. He currently serves on the board of the Illinois Council of Orchestras, where he heads the Conducting Mentorship program, and the International Conductors Guild. 

Michael’s major research interest is the music of Shostakovich. His analytical volume, A Shostakovich Companion, has been acclaimed in Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. He has also given papers on Shostakovich’s 7th Quartet, the cantata The Execution of Stepan Razin, the song cycle Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarotti, the first version of the 9th Symphony, and Shostakovich’s reorchestration of Schumann’s Cello Concerto.

 
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2025  (All times are Central Time)

4.00pm                     Introduction to workshop 
4:30pm - 7:00pm     Conducting Session 1 (with string quintet) – All conductors                                  

SATURDAY,  OCTOBER 25, 2025 

9:30am - 11:00am      Conducting Session 2 (with string quintet) – Group A
11:15am - 12:30pm    Lecture/Rehearsal: “Rehearsal Techniques for Young Orchestras”,
                                    with Sandra Dackow and the Edwardsville Youth Orchestra
12:45pm - 1:40pm      Lunch on your own at the University Centre
1:40pm - 2:50pm        Score study / rehearsal techniques / open forum
3:00pm - 5:00pm        Conducting Session 3 (with chamber string ensemble) – Group B
5:45pm                        Group dinner – at your own expense – wine will be provided

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2025 

11:00am - 12:20pm    Conducting Session 4 (with string quintet) – Group B
12:30pm - 1:30pm      Lunch on your own at the University Centre
1:30pm - 3:30pm        Conducting Session 5 (with chamber string ensemble) – Group A
3:30pm - 4:00pm        Open forum

WORKSHOP REPERTOIRE:
Mozart:  Eine kleine Nachtmusik, movements 1 and 2
Tchaikovsky:  String Serenade, movement 3
Soon Hee Newbold:  Perseus
Mahler:  Symphony No. 1, movement 2 (arr. Sandra Dackow, published by Tempo Press)
*** PLEASE NOTE:  Participants do not need to prepare all the pieces on the list
                                    and will have free choice of what they conduct at each session.

Continuing Education Units from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
also available at additional cost (please see contact details below).

Conductors at all levels are welcome.

TO APPLY:

THE TUITION:
Active Participant:  $350
Auditor:  $225
As soon as the application deadline has passed, all applicants will be contacted. 
Active participant spots will be filled on a first come, first served basis.
Please wait until applications are reviewed and we communicate with you.  Active participating conductors and auditors will use THIS LINK to make your tuition payment

For more information on the workshop, contact:
 International Conductors Guild at [email protected]  or

Dr. Michael Mishra at: [email protected]

Continuing Education Credits
Continuing Education Units are available through Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  
Please contact Cynthia Cobetto, Office of Online Services and Educational Outreach at:
618-650-2164 or [email protected]