Over the past 25 years, David Lockington has developed an impressive conducting career in the United States. A native of Great Britain, he was appointed the music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra in January 1999 and is the former music director of the New Mexico Symphony and the Long Island Philharmonic.

Since his arrival in the United States in 1978, Lockington's conducting activities have included serving as music director of the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, the Denver Young Artist's Orchestra and the Boulder Bach Festival. In addition, he was founder and conductor of the Academy in the Wilderness Chamber Orchestra and for three years held the post of assistant conductor with the Denver Symphony Orchestra and Opera Colorado. Following an extensive nationwide search, Lockington was appointed assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in September 1992, and one year later, was promoted to the position of associate conductor. In May 1993, he accepted the position of music director of the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, assumed the title of music director of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra in September 1995, and was music director of the Long Island Philharmonic for the 1996/97 to 1999/2000 seasons.

In addition to conducting the classical series, casual classics and a variety of education and touring programs in Grand Rapids, Lockington's guest conducting engagements include appearances with the St. Louis, Houston, Detroit, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, Colorado and Oregon symphonies, the Buffalo, Rochester and Louisiana Philharmonics, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall. Internationally, he has conducted the China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in Beijing and Taiwan, led the English Chamber Orchestra on a tour in Asia, and appeared with the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain and the Northern Sinfonia in Great Britain.

Lockington's summer festival activities include conducting appearances at the Grand Teton, San Luis Obispo Mozart, Interlochen, Summer Music and Eastern Music festivals and first performances at the Chautauqua Music Festival in July 2006.

In May 2005, in celebration of the orchestra's 75th anniversary, Lockington led the Grand Rapids Symphony in a program of works by Dvorak, Goldmark and Copland at New York's Carnegie Hall.

Lockington began his career as a cellist and was the principal with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for two years. After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Cambridge, Lockington came to the United States on a scholarship to Yale University where he received his Master's degree in cello performance and studied conducting with Otto Werner Mueller. Lockington was a member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and served as assistant principal cellist for three years with the Denver Symphony Orchestra before turning to conducting.

Lockington is married to violinist Dylana Jenson and they currently reside with their four children in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Internationally acclaimed conductor and violinist Joseph Silverstein was music director of the Utah Symphony Orchestra from 1983 until 1998. He became conductor laureate in the 1998/99 season. Music director of the Chautauqua Symphony from the 1986/87 season through the 1988/89 season, he has also served as principal guest conductor of Seattle’s Northwest Chamber Orchestra.

Born in Detroit, his first teacher was his father Bernard, who was a music instructor in Detroit’s public school system. His formal training took place at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and his teachers included such luminaries as Josef Gingold, Mischa Mischakoff, and Efrem Zimbalist. After leaving the Curtis Institute in 1950, Silverstein spent three seasons with the Houston Symphony; one with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and one season as concertmaster and assistant conductor of the Denver Symphony. He joined the Boston Symphony in the fall of 1955 and was a member of the violin section for seven seasons. He became concertmaster in 1962 and assistant conductor in 1971, holding both positions through the 1983/84 season. During his tenure at Boston, he conducted the orchestra on more than 100 occasions in the United States, Canada and abroad. He has also served as artistic advisor to the Hartford, Kansas City, Louisville, Baltimore, Toledo, Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Winnipeg and Oakland Symphony Orchestras, as well as interim music director of the Florida Philharmonic from January 2002 through May 2003. He will serve as the Portland Symphony’s Artistic Advisor for the 2007/08 season.

As a conductor and soloist, Silverstein has appeared with hundreds of orchestras in the United States, as well as in Japan, Israel, and Europe. As a participant in major international competitions, he was the silver medalist in the 1959 Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, and also won the Walter W. Naumburg Award in 1960. In recent seasons, he appeared in recital in Boston, New York, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. Future and recent-past engagements with Silverstein conducting and appearing as soloist include the Berlin Symphony, the Florida Orchestra and Florida Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the Winnipeg Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, as well as appearances at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Aldeburgh Festival of England, and at the prestigious Teatro Comunale di Ferrara in Italy. In the fall of 2001, Silverstein toured major European cities as a member of a piano quartet that includes Pierre-Laurent Aimard, pianist; Tabea Zimmermann, violist, and Jean-Guihen Queyras, cellist.

Silverstein organized the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in 1964 and served as music director of that ensemble until moving to the Utah Symphony. He led eight international tours, as well as many United States tours. He has been a member of the faculties at Yale University, Boston University and the Tanglewood Music Center. He also holds honorary degrees from Tufts University, Boston College, Rhode Island University and the New England Conservatory. He is principal conductor and artistic advisor to orchestras at The New England Conservatory and a member of the string faculty of the Curtis Institute and the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additionally, he is also an artist member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York.

Versatility is the key word for conductor Richard Pittman, marked by the large, varied repertoire he has led with a wide range of orchestras, ensembles, and opera companies around the world. His lucid baton and highly efficient rehearsal technique enable Pittman to bring out the very best in orchestras at every level. With interpretive insights into the most diverse areas of the repertoire, Pittman’s performances have been noted for their sensitivity to character and style, rhythmic vitality, shaping of melodic lines, clarity of structure, and dramatic pacing.

The founder of the prestigious Boston Musica Viva, Richard Pittman has led that group to international prominence as one of the finest new music ensembles in the world. He has a special ability to bring new works to life and possesses an ear for talent that has led to the commissioning of works for the Boston Musica Viva that have entered the international repertoire and garnered major awards for many of the composers. Pittman himself is the recipient of ASCAP Adventurous Programming Awards with Boston Musica Viva, and with both of his other orchestras, the New England Philharmonic and the Concord Orchestra, as well as the Laurel Leaf Award from the American Composers Alliance for the fostering and nurturing of American music and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Peabody Conservatory.

Pittman has also won kudos as an experienced opera conductor with a theatrical flair and sensitivity to singers’ needs. He has a repertoire of 65 operas, from the staples of the standard repertoire to world premieres, first U.S. performances and first European performances.

Promising young conductor Shizuo Kuwahara recently won second prize in the prestigious Georg Solti International Conductors’ Competition in Germany.  Klassik.com praised his performance, writing, “In terms of artistic courage, musical élan, and emotional identification with the score, surely for many in the audience Shizuo Kuwahara had the edge.  His interpretation of Death and Transfiguration was astonishingly mature and imbued with a strong personal note. ...”

Kuwahara holds the positions of associate conductor of the Virginia Symphony and conducting fellow with the Philadelphia Orchestra.  In Philadelphia, he is mentored by Music Director Christoph Eschenbach, and leads the orchestra in Family and Student concerts and also in additional performances. Kuwahara is also artistic director of the IPPO Philharmonic in Tokyo, Japan.  In 2006 he spent his summer in Sapporo, Japan, where he was assistant conductor of the Pacific Music Festival.  Kuwahara was music director of the William & Mary Symphony from 2003 to 2005 and of the American University Symphony Orchestra from 2001 to 2003. 

In the 2006/07 season, Kuwahara had engagements with the Nagoya Philharmonic, Poland Chamber Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra as a guest conductor.  His past guest conducting appearances have included the Baltimore Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Chattanooga Symphony, Musica Nova in Rochester (NY), the Society for New Music in Syracuse (NY), and a U.S. tour with the Baltimore Symphony in 2004. 

Kuwahara participates in international conducting competitions around the world.  In addition to winning second prize at the Solti Competition, he received an honorable mention in the 2006 Tokyo International Music Competition for Conducting and was a semifinalist in the Prokofiev International Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia.  He is a recipient of a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Born in Tokyo, Kuwahara studied conducting at Yale University, where he won the Eleozar de Carvalho Prize for students of conducting, and at the Eastman School of Music, where he was awarded the George Eastman Scholarship and certificates in performance and arts leadership.  His principal teachers have included David Effron and Lawrence Leighton Smith.  Kuwahara has also studied with Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Timothy Muffitt, and Michael Jinbo at various conducting institutions, including Aspen, the National Conducting Institute, the Pierre Monteux School, and the Chautauqua Music Institute. 

Kuwahara is a member of the American Conducting Fellows Program, a national conductor-training program developed and managed by the American Symphony Orchestra League.  The program supports the musical and leadership development of exceptionally talented conductors in the early stages of their professional careers.  It aims to improve the qualifications of American conductors to assume leadership roles as music directors of American orchestras.  Funding for the American Conducting Fellows Program is provided by major grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.