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Mr. Joel Lazar

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Member Bio “Joel is one of the best musicians around. He has a pedigree of teachers and mentors going back a long way…One of the most musically text-oriented conductors…really one of the most erudite musicians on the scene, first-rate conductor…not worried about his position…He’s sympathetic, not arrogant and simply a joy to work with…” (Leon Fleisher) Now in his eleventh season with the Washington Sinfonietta, acclaimed by the Washington Post as “…one of Washington’s premier conductors of both old and new music…”, Joel Lazar was Music Director of the JCC Symphony Orchestra from 1988 through 2008 and has continued with that orchestra in its new identity as the Symphony of the Potomac. He conducted the Theater Chamber Players in engagements at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress and on tour from 1986 to 2003, and has appeared as guest conductor with many orchestras and contemporary music ensembles in the Washington area. During the 1990s, he was Music Director of Alexandria-based Opera Americana, and has been Principal Conductor for the In Series’ opera productions since 1991. A cover conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2001, Joel Lazar shared the stage with Music Director Leonard Slatkin in critically praised and enthusiastically received performances of Ives’ Fourth Symphony in April 2001. Music Director of the Tulsa Philharmonic from 1980 to 1983, Joel Lazar has also appeared with the orchestras of San Antonio, Louisville, Pasadena, Oklahoma City, Richmond, Harrisburg, Wheeling and Johnstown, with Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston, and was Music Director of the Richmond Philharmonic from 1990 to 1992. During a period of European residence he conducted the BBC Philharmonic, the Danish National Orchestra, the Tivoli Orchestra and the Scottish Baroque Ensemble in concerts, broadcasts and recordings. In summer 2002 he returned to Europe to conduct a highly-acclaimed performance of Bruckner’s Third Symphony with the Collegium Musicum Schloss Pommersfelden. His concerts and feature interviews have been broadcast by the BBC, Danmarks Radio, Bayerischer Rundfunk, WCLV-FM (Cleveland, Ohio) and National Public Radio. A native New Yorker, Joel Lazar received undergraduate and graduate degrees in music from Harvard University, where he studied with Pierre Boulez, Walter Piston and Randall Thompson. In conductors’ courses at Aspen and Tanglewood he worked with Izler Solomon, Walter Susskind, Richard Burgin and Erich Leinsdorf, and at the Shenandoah Festival with Richard Lert. From 1961 until 1971 he taught and conducted at Harvard, New York University and the University of Virginia. In 1969 Joel Lazar was elected to honorary membership in the Bruckner Society of America. Through colleagues in the Society he met the legendary Jascha Horenstein, master interpreter of Mahler and Bruckner and, in 1971, received a fellowship enabling him to spend two years overseas as Horenstein’s personal assistant, the only young conductor ever
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Nathan Leaf

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Member Bio Nathan Leaf is the Director of Choral Activities, Teaching Professor, and Assistant Department Head at North Carolina State University, where he directs three choirs and heads the choral program. He is also the Artistic Director of the Concert Singers of Cary, a 100-voice community choir. A versatile musician, he has garnered critical praise for his work as a conductor and teacher. He has performed as singer with some of the top vocal ensembles in the country, and has collaborated with many of North Carolina’s leading musical organizations, including the North Carolina Symphony, the North Carolina Master Chorale and Chamber Choir, the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Mallarmé Chamber Players, the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, and the NC HIP Music Festival. During his tenure at NC State, the choral and vocal areas have experienced significant growth. His work with young singers emphasizes thoughtful musicality and healthy vocal production. He has served as a guest conductor and clinician in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States, and choirs under his direction have toured throughout the U.S. and abroad, including performances in England, Ireland, France, Italy, Austria, and the Czech Republic. From 2008-2012, Dr. Leaf was the Chorus Master for North Carolina Opera, and from 2010-2017 was the choir director at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Durham. He was selected through national audition as one of six conductors featured at the 2012 Providence Renaissance Institute workshop at the ACDA Eastern Division Conference. In 2017, Dr. Leaf conducted the North Carolina Men’s All State Choir. Leaf sang for eight seasons as a member of the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus in Eugene, Oregon, performing under the batons of Helmuth Rilling and Matthew Halls, as well as other leading conductors including Marin Alsop, Nicholas McGegan, and Jeffrey Kahane. He has performed with several other professional choirs, including the GRAMMY-winning Conspirare-Company of Voices in Texas, True Concord in Arizona, and the Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus in New York City. As part of his doctoral research, he toured Central Europe as member of the Swedish male choir Orphei Drängar. His stage credits as a conductor, singer, and orchestra member include productions of La Cenerentola, Rigoletto, Tosca, Faust, Carmen, Il Trovatore, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, Le Nozze di Figaro, A Little Night Music, and A Chorus Line, among others. Dr. Leaf earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Valparaiso University and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in choral conducting from the Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. A recipient of UT’s Bruton Graduate Fellowship, his research on Swedish choral music has earned several publications, including in a feature article in Choral Journal, the primary publication of the American Choral Directors Association.
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Libi Lebel

Texas Medical Center Orchestra
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Member Bio Dynamic, energetic, charismatic and inspiring, Russian-born conductor Libi Lebel has a strong and growing reputation in the music world for her ability to communicate through orchestras of all shapes and levels. A talented and dedicated orchestra builder, the founder and music director of Texas Medical Center Orchestra is credited with its remarkable growth. The recipient of the 2003 Houston YWCA Outstanding Woman of the Arts award, Ms. Lebel has just been listed as one of the 50 most influential women in Houston. Ms. Lebel’s musical career began at an early age as an aspiring pianist. She has performed as a piano soloist with numerous orchestras as well as giving many solo recitals and concerts to benefit various medical causes. Her busy career includes winning several piano competitions and awards, participating in music festivals and teaching piano. She holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from The Juilliard School of Music and Westminster Choir College in Piano Performance and Conducting. Her conducting teachers include Josef Flummerfelt, Harold Farberman, Leonid Korchmar Oleg Proskurnya, and Piotr Gribanov. While in New York, she served as Principal Conductor of Princeton University’s Sinfonia Orchestra and appeared as guest conductor with various orchestral and choral ensembles including Westminster Community Orchestra, Garden State Philharmonic Chorus, Brazosport Symphony, Fort Bend Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Congress Orchestra in Russia and Bacau Symphony Orchestra in Romania. Asked why she is so passionate about music, Ms. Lebel says: “What inspires me is to make music come alive. To hear it laugh and cry. To feel the love, pride, joy, sadness. To help it unfold in the most convincing and compelling way. Music and music making is a gift from heaven. It affords us an opportunity to connect to the very essence of our humanity, allowing us to come into contact with that part of ourselves which expresses our most profound creativity. Music gives us insight into the mysteries of life, the changing tides of our hearts, minds and souls, leading us to new and profound understandings of the human experience. I am so lucky to have music in my life.”
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Chia Lee

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Member Bio Chia Ying Lee is an Artificial Intelligence -AI Researcher by day, and a pianist by night. Chia Ying began learning the piano at age 7 growing up in Singapore, and moved to the US to study Music and Mathematics at the University of Michigan, while enrolled in the Piano Performance program. She continued piano lessons throughout her Doctorate studies in Applied Mathematics at Brown University, during which she continued to perform in solo recitals. Her past and present teachers include John Ellis, Linda Jiorle-Nagy and Roberto Poli. Following a decade-long hiatus from music, during which she pursued her second passion of figure skating, Chia Ying recently returned to her first love after buying a new piano to furnish her new home. Since then, she has been an active member in local amateur piano groups, and competed in the Boston International Piano Competition in 2024. Drawing from her academic roots, she is also fascinated by motor learning theory and was inspired to start a piano blog, Levitate! Piano Imagery, where she connects theory to practice at the piano.
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Doohi Lee

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Member Bio Dr. Doohi Lee began the piano at age 13 and studied with Paul Kueter, continuing with Harriet Goler at the Cleveland Institute of Music in Piano Performance. He changed his major field of study to Biomedical Engineering at the Case School of Engineering in Cleveland, while continuing his piano studies with William Appling and Andrius Kuprevicius. During the summer of 1986, he was accepted to the Fontainbleau School of Music in France, where he studied piano with Gaby Casadesus and music analysis with Narcis Bonet, as protégé of Nadia Boulanger. Lee has also coached with Carolle Anne Mochernuk, Samuel Sanders, Emilio del Rosario, Jose Fegahli, Tamas Ungar. As piano soloist, Lee performed with the Redford Civic Symphony Orchestra in Michigan in two separate occasions, performing the Piano Concerto Nos. 19 and 20 by Mozart. He has also presented solo recitals in Lexington, Richmond, Cleveland, Detroit, Antwerp, Montreal, and Buenos Aires. In June of 1999 and 2000, he was invited to participate in the First and Second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs at Fort Worth, Texas. In August 2001, as part of Altamura Music Festival on the Greene (Catskills, New York), Lee performed and recorded the Piano Concerto No. 20 (K466) by Mozart with the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Bacau, Romania, Karel Mark Chichon conducting. In March 2006, he was invited to perform with the Flower Mound Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Dr. Paul Bonneau. A devoted chamber musician, Lee has performed with the members of The Cleveland Orchestra (June 1989, for the benefit of The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus), The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Chamber Ensemble, and the Montreal Symphony. In June of 1991, he was invited to perform the “Trout” Piano Quintet by Schubert with The Lafayette String Quartet for the benefit of The Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. In 2003, Lee founded The Phoenix Trio, with Nancy Messuri (Violin) and Dwight Anderson (Cello), and presented many concerts in the greater Dallas area. During the 2007-2010 seasons, Lee performed as a part of the Mu Phi Epsilon Concert Series at the Dallas Library, both in solo recitals and in chamber music concerts with musicians from the Plano Symphony, Dallas Opera Orchestra and Irving Symphony. Also a Conductor, Lee began conducting in college with the Case Men’s Glee Club as Interim Conductor. He studied orchestral conducting with David Daniels, Michael Charry, David Delta Gier, and Gustav Meier. He was Apprentice Conductor under David Daniels, and made his orchestral conducting debut in 1994 with The Pontiac-Oakland Symphony in Michigan, directing the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Liszt and the Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn. At the Altamura Music Festival, Lee also conducted the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Bacau, Romania, in a performance of the Overture to “Die Fledermaus” by R. Strauss and the Symphony No. 7 (1st Movement) by Beethoven. In 2014 Lee was invited to be the Conductor of Camerata Dallas and performed in the Museum of Biblical Arts in Dallas, including works by Faure, Mozart and Copeland. As a physician, Dr. Lee holds six Board Certifications in diverse fields including Vein Surgery, Laser Surgery, Aesthetic Medicine and Regenerative Medicine. He is in private practice as Medical Director of Advanced Surgical Arts, specializing in Cosmetic Surgery and Regenerative Medicine, applying the latest technologies and surgical procedures. Lee was also an invited physician to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, and has worked with NASA to train Astronauts to use ultrasound in space.
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Mr. Richard Lee

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Member Bio From the time his mother sat him down at a toy piano when he was three years old, Richard Lee has spent his life immersed in music. He graduated to a real piano at the age of five and took up the violin at age seven. After several long years of coerced practicing, he eventually began to enjoy playing, and at age seventeen, passed with honours the grade X piano and violin exams at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. After a brief and ill-advised stint as a physics major, Richard came to his senses and pursued a degree in Music Performance at the University of Toronto, where as both a violinist and a violist, he studied with Lorand Fenyves, Rennie Regehr and Ken Perkins while also studying conducting with Pierre Hétu. Further studies and mentoring in conducting ensued, most notably with Yoav Talmi, Jorma Panula, Gustav Meier, Geoffrey Moull and Kirk Trevor. He has participated in masterclasses for such eminent musicians as Pinchas Zukerman, Rivka Golani, Charles Castleman, Gunther Herbig, Sir Andrew Davis and Helmuth Rilling. After teaching middle school music for five years, Richard returned to the University of Toronto where, as the Victor Feldbrill Fellow in orchestral conducting, he obtained a Master’s degree under the tutelage of Raffi Armenian. Richard is the Music Director of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra, having also previously served as Music Director of the Korean Canadian Symphony Orchestra as well as resident or assistant conductor with the symphony orchestras of Winnipeg, Quebec and Thunder Bay. His work has been recorded and broadcast by the CBC/Radio-Canada. Outside of music, Richard enjoys Cuban cigars, fine ales & lagers, whiskeys of the world and real barbeque. He tries to make up for this by jogging and practicing hot yoga as often as possible. Richard remains a loyal fan of the Toronto Raptors and Toronto FC, despite residing with his wife, Dr. Julie Philley, in Tyler, Texas, some 1200 miles (1900 kilometres) away.
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Rocky Lee

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Francis Leger

Applied Virtuosics
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Member Bio Francis Leger, the American conductor and cellist, is Founder and CEO of Applied Virtuosic. Recognized as a gifted interpretive artist, he has a track record of transforming and building orchestras, and of exciting American and international audiences with profoundly moving performances. Leger has built upon an enormous range of experience. In Prague, he served as Principal Conductor and Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic. In China, he served as Music Advisor to the national Kong Xiang-Dong Music Organization. He first garnered international attention over twenty-five years ago, and was one of the first Americans to guest conduct the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. In Italy, he served as Music Director of the Rome Philharmonic Orchestra. In the United States, Leger has worked with symphony orchestras and chamber orchestras in the Northeast and Southwest, and served a five-year tenure in music, production, and administration at The Opera Company of Boston. He has held conducting positions with other opera companies including American National Opera, Austin Opera, Opera New England, and the Hartt Opera Theater. Early in his career, he made his opera debut conducting Gaetano Donizetti's La Fille Du Regiment at the historic Central City Opera Festival in Colorado. Leger has conducted conservatory and university orchestras, internationally and in the United States as music director and guest conductor, and among others served at The Boston Conservatory, The University of Minnesota, Duluth, Central Texas College, and Eastern Connecticut State University. As Director of Orchestras and Assistant Professor at UMD, he was the artist cellist on faculty and led the orchestral program conducting the symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, and orchestra festival. As the music faculty and first appointed Artist-in-Residence at Texas A&M University, Central Texas, he taught a full complement of music courses, established the music program, orchestra festival, performed chamber music concerts, and served in the University Center for Applied Research and Engagement. As head of music research he also worked on cybersecurity in music and founded the innovative Music Performance and Research Lab. Leger studied and trained at leading institutions, programs, and institutes in the United States and Europe, and graduated Phi Kappa Phi honors from Ithaca College School of Music in New York. He began playing cello shortly before age twenty-one, earned an MM degree in Cello Performance and was awarded the only Graduate Assistantship in Conducting from The Boston Conservatory. He continued his advanced studies in orchestral and opera conducting at the University of Hartford, The Hartt School with Austrian conductor Kurt Klippstatter. Leger’s work has taken him to major cities including Beijing, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Barcelona, London, and Paris. As Special Guest Conductor and Composer at the International Shanghai Television Festival, he was Music Director for classical programming and conducted live televised concerts, which featured world premieres of his music. He has been a Visiting Artist and Scholar at the distinguished American Academy in Rome. While working in Italy, he accepted a personal invitation and was one of the last conductors to study with the legendary Franco Ferrara. After hearing Francis Leger conduct the Arena Orchestra of Verona, Ferrara stated, “Rarely have I heard such emotion.”
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Mr. David Leibowitz

New York Repertory Orchestra
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Member Bio Celebrated for his innovative programming and exciting performances, conductor David Leibowitz has achieved international acclaim for his work on the concert, opera, and ballet stage. Mr. Leibowitz is the Music Director/Conductor and founder of the award-winning New York Repertory Orchestra . Some recent highlights of his tenure there have been a fully staged production of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and a landmark performance of Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 3. As an avid fan and champion of today’s music he has commissioned, worked with, and performed local and world premieres by some of today’s most important composers; such as Eduard Tubin, Harold Farberman, Paul Moravec, Stephen Dembski, John Schwabe, Salvador Brotons, William Dickerson, and Terry Pender. Since 2003 Mr. Leibowitz has held the post of Principal Conductor with the Massapequa Philharmonic Orchestra (NY) and since 2003 has been on the conducting staff of the Rome Festival Opera (Italy), leading opera, ballet, and concert performances. He is also on the staff of the International Opera Institute at the Maud Powell Music Festival. (IL). Recent operatic highlights include performances of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, and Le nozze di Figaro, Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore, Bizet’s Carmen, and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, all to critical acclaim. Throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe he has directed such ensembles as the Pleven Philharmonic (Bulgaria), the Orchester Pro Arte (Vienna), the Masterplayers Orchestra (Switzerland), the Orquestra Sinfonico de la Ciudad de Mexico, the Bach Festival Orchestra (Princeton, NJ), and the Brooklyn Opera and Dance Theater. Critics hailed his performances with the Pleven Philharmonic as “passionate and exciting.” In the New York City area, he has conducted the Greenwich Village Orchestra, Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, Centre Symphony Orchestra, Sound Symphony Orchestra, and Music at St. Paul’s (Columbia University). He has been invited back to those ensembles and venues repeatedly. A dedicated music educator, Mr. Leibowitz conducted the Third Street Philharmonia at the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City from 2003-2005. He has worked as a conductor and coach with many other student and youth orchestras, including the Maud Powell Music Festival, the orchestras of Brooklyn College and City College of New York, the InterSchools Orchestra of New York, and the Gemini Youth Orchestra. Mr. Leibowitz received his Master of Arts degree in Performance Practice, Summa Cum Laude, from the City University of New York’s Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College. His main studies were in performance, musicology, and composition. He was awarded a teaching fellowship and was named a Presidential Scholar of the University. He has continued his conducting studies with, among others, Her-bert Blomstedt, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Jacques-Louis Monod.
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Sandra Lemmon Sandra Lemmon Eastman School of Music

Eastman School of Music
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