International Conductors Guild
Results 611 - 620 of 649
Lauren Wasynczuk
Work Phone
Member Bio A native of Los Angeles, Lauren Wasynczuk leads an active career as a conductor, saxophonist and music educator dedicated to engaging audiences and performers of all ages. As Artistic & Ensembles Director of Young Musicians Foundation, her role ensures that YMF’s mission, artistic vision, programmatic and pedagogical goals are embodied in and amplified by the ensemble programs, YMF-based ensembles and the Debut Orchestra. Representing YMF in the community, she actively seeks to initiate and develop strategic relationships with arts organizations, notable musicians and potential sponsors. Her multi-faceted work has provided her opportunity to appear in concerts, music festivals, and masterclasses throughout North America and Europe. Her recent conducting includes the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, London Classical Soloists, Miami Symphony Orchestra, TEMPO New Music Ensemble, Marina del Rey Summer Symphony, Westlake Village Symphony and Santa Monica Symphony. She has also served as Assistant/Cover Conductor with Opera San Luis Obispo, Assistant Director of Yevshan Ukrainian Vocal Ensemble, Guest Conductor of the Kobzar Ukrainian National Choir and Guest Conductor of the San Luis Obispo Wind Orchestra. As a saxophonist, Lauren is a founding member of the nationally recognized La’Ventus Quartet. Described as “a choice ensemble that plays with style and elegance”, La’Ventus has been winners in the world’s most prestigious chamber music competitions including the Music Teachers National Association Chamber Music Competition and the American Prize in Chamber Music Performance Competition. Along with being an active solo and chamber musician, Lauren serves as Director of the Caltech-Occidental Saxophone Ensemble. Lauren holds a Master of Music degree from The Hartt School, graduating as a member of Pi Kappa Lamba National Music Honor Society, and Bachelor of Arts in Music from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Member Website
Mr. John Watkins Jr.
Work Phone
Member Bio Mr. John M. “Jay” Watkins, Jr. serves the Gator Nation as the Associate Director of Bands, Director of Athletic Bands, Assistant Professor in the School of Music and as the Director of the “Pride of the Sunshine” - The Gator Marching Band. Prior to his appointment at UF, he served as Assistant to the Director of Bands, Assistant Director of the Longhorn Band, and Conductor of the Longhorn Basketball, Volleyball and Concert Bands at The University of Texas at Austin, where he was the principle guest conductor of the Symphony Band and the show designer for the Longhorn Band. In the past, ensembles under his direction have performed and recorded with over 36 Grammy-award winning artists in a program he developed to integrate the academic, athletics and live music communities of Central Texas. Prior to his appointment at Texas, he served as the Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at Charleston Southern University (SC), where he was also the Coordinator of Instrumental Music Education. Mr. Watkins has received recognition as the CSU Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year and as a recipient of the National Band Association’s “Citation of Excellence”, and was the founder, Music Director and Conductor of The Lowcountry Winds, a professional wind ensemble based in Charleston, SC. He has also served as the Director of the U.S. Navy Drum & Bugle Corps and the Director of Instrumental Music at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, and as a teacher in the public schools in North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia. Prior to his work in music education, he worked for the US Naval Research Laboratory as a research associate in the areas of liquid fuel propellants and their stability and published over 75 articles in refereed science journals. Mr. Watkins is a native of Falls Church, VA and earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Music Education degrees from George Mason University and Valdosta State University. He holds professional memberships in numerous organizations, served as South Carolina State Chair and Southern Division Chair for the National Band Association, and is an elected member of Phi Beta Mu, the International Bandmaster’s Fraternity. Mr. Watkins remains very active as a designer, clinician and adjudicator throughout the country. He is married to the former Natalie Kay McLain of Duncan, SC; they have one son, Jacob.
Member Website
Ryan Webber
Work Phone
Member Bio Ryan Webber joins the BSU faculty in 2017 as adjunct professor. He received a Bachelor of Music from University of California, Irvine, studying under David Stetson, and a Master of Music from University of Kansas, studying under Dr. Michael Davidson. Additional studies have been completed with Michael Hoffman, Jim Kraft, and Graeme Mutchler. As an orchestral musician, Mr. Webber has performed with the Bemidji, Heartland, Southeast Kansas, Kansas City Civic, and Corona Symphony Orchestras. In addition to performances around the United States, Mr. Webber recently toured China with the MasterWorks Festival Orchestra. Some artists he has performed with include Natalie Cole, Bill Watrous, Jim Oatts, and Michael W. Smith. Other notable performing experiences include the Topeka Jazz Workshop Big Band and in the pit for Topeka Civic Theatre. Mr. Webber also maintains an active schedule as a conductor. He was the Assistant Conductor for the Lawrence Youth Symphony, which doubled in size during his tenure. Other groups he has worked with include the Topeka Collegiate Band, Symphonette Orchestra of the Youth Orchestras of Kansas City, La Primavera Youth Orchestra, and Community Youth Orchestra of Southern California. Mr. Webber also recently joined the staff of Northern Light Opera Company as their pit orchestra director. Mr. Webber currently teaches low brass methods, applied low brass, co-directs the trombone choir, and co-directs the BSU pep band.
Member Website
Mr. Michael Webster
Work Phone
Member Bio Clarinetist Michael Webster is Professor of Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and Artistic Director of the Houston Youth Symphony, which has won 12 national awards between 2008 and 2013 and appeared on the nationally distributed NPR program, “From the Top” in Sept. 2012. Described by the Boston Globe as “a virtuoso of burgeoning prominence,” Webster has collaborated with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Tokyo, Cleveland, Muir, Ying, Leontóvych, Dover, and Chester String Quartets and artists such as Yo Yo Ma and Joshua Bell among many others. He has been associated with many of North America’s finest festivals, including Marlboro, Santa Fe, Chamber Music West and Northwest, Norfolk, Angel Fire, Steamboat Springs, Sitka, Park City, Skaneateles, Maui, Bowdoin, La Musica di Asola, Stratford (Ontario), Victoria (BC), and Domaine Forget (Quebec). As a soloist he has appeared with many orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra with Aaron Copland and the Boston Pops with John Williams; for many years he was Aaron Copland’s favorite interpreter of his Clarinet Concerto. Webster’s recital career began at Town Hall in 1968 with his eminent father, Beveridge Webster, as pianist. That same year he won Young Concert Artists’ International Competition and became Principal Clarinetist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then he has performed in all of New York City’s major halls, across the United States, and in Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He has appeared as guest artist with the 92nd Street “Y”, Da Camera of Houston, Musiqa, and Context. High Fidelity/Musical America placed his CRI recording of American clarinet music on its Best Recordings list and Artists International selected him for its Distinguished Artist Award. Webster has served as Acting Principal Clarinetist of the San Francisco Symphony, Music Director of the Society for Chamber Music in Rochester, Founder and Music Director of Chamber Music Ann Arbor, and Associate Professor of Clarinet at the Eastman School of Music, from which he earned three degrees as a student of Stanley Hasty. In 1988 he became a member of the conducting faculty at the New England Conservatory and taught clarinet both there and at Boston University. He has also taught at the San Francisco Conservatory, the Yale Summer School at Norfolk, Aria International Academy, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the Johannesen International School of the Arts, the Bowdoin Festival, and the Texas Music Festival. Webster was Music Director of the Wellesley Symphony Orchestra, Assistant Conductor of the Asian Youth Orchestra under Yehudi Menuhin, and guest conductor of several Boston-area orchestras before joining the University of Michigan faculty as Adjunct Professor of Conducting and Director of the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra in 1993.
Member Website
Harold Weller
Foundation to Assist Young Musicians (FAYM)
Work Phone
Member Bio http://www.classicalmatters.com/harold_weller.htm
Member Website
Mr. John Welsh
Eleva Chamber Players - Music Adviser
Work Phone
Member Bio John Welsh recently completed his 18-year tenure as the Founding Music Director of the Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia in Washington State. Past Music Director positions include the Bremerton Symphony Orchestra, the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra, the Prince William Symphony, the Georgetown Symphony Orchestra and other orchestras in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. He has also served as the Associate Conductor of the Rainier Symphony in Seattle. Mr. Welsh has conducted the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the New World Symphony in Miami, the Festival International Echtenach Chamber Orchestra in Luxembourg, the San Miguel Philharmonic in Manila, Philippines, the Metropolitan Chamber Players at Lincoln Center, the Arlington Symphony, the Annapolis Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony and the Shenandoah Music Festival Orchestra. He has also held residencies at Indiana University and was a lecturer at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Mr. Welsh holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano from Miami University (OH) and a Masters in Conducting from Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. While serving as a Captain in the United States Air Force, he was assigned to the United States Air Force Band and Symphony in Washington DC and the Military Airlift Command Band in Illinois.
Member Website
Robert Whalen
Work Phone
Member Bio Conductor Robert Whalen serves on the Conducting Staff at Opera Philadelphia, and will prepare productions of The Love for Three Oranges, Semele, Madama Butterfly, and Verdi’s Requiem in the 2019-2020 Season. Robert is Music Director of SoundLAB, a cutting-edge contemporary ensemble in Philadelphia. SoundLAB was the resident ensemble at the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2018 Barnes/Stokowski Festival, and was born out of the Barnes Ensemble, a creative laboratory for contemporary music at the Barnes Foundation, where Whalen was Associate Curator for Music. Whalen was personally selected by Lorin Maazel to serve as his Conducting Fellow at the Castleton Festival and has worked as Assistant Conductor of the WDR Funkhausorchester in Cologne, Germany. Whalen was on faculty at the University of Chicago as the Director of the Chamber Orchestra and as Music Director of the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company of Chicago. He also founded and led the Chicago-based new music ensemble Les espaces acoustiques. As Conductor of the Contemporary Music Workshop at the University of Minnesota, Whalen led numerous regional and world premieres and conducted contemporary masterworks including Grisey’s Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil and Helmut Lachenmann’s Zwei gefühle…Musik mit Leonardo. Whalen is an active member of the Board of Directors for the Conductors Guild. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Whalen has collaborated with many leading composers, including the late Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky and Grammy-winning composer Augusta Read Thomas. A native of New York, Whalen earned a BA cum laude from Cornell University, a master’s degree from the Bard College Conservatory of Music, a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, and pursued post-graduate study at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Member Website
© Copyright 2017 International Conductors Guild, Inc. All rights reserved.
15 E. Market Street, #22, Leesburg, VA 20178 • PH: 202.643.4791
[email protected]
Back to top