Discussion Panel

I was born and grew up in Nottingham, England, to a non-musical family. I wanted to be a composer from an early age. Studied (ha!) at Oxford University and turned down the Guildhall Graduate Conductor's course in order to do an MA in analysis of contemporary composition techniques (Lutoslawski and Berio) in Nottingham. I lived in London for about 10 years, teaching, conducting, composing. Conducting arose out of composing - out of taking charge of performances of my own music. But it’s easier conducting other stuff - you get to work with a better class of music and there is no need to compose!

In 1978 I moved to the USA as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra with Lorin Maazel. I have lived and worked as a conductor mainly in the USA since then. I met my wife, Sabra, at the Cleveland Orchestra. We have been married 25 years and have two children. A son in the Peace Corps in Africa, and a daughter who is a senior at Bennington College. We live in the north of Vermont, far away from all orchestra boards and administrations.

I have held staff positions in Cleveland, San Francisco, Milwaukee, New Orleans; Music Directorships in Rhode Island, Fresno, Toledo, Oregon Mozart Players, Michigan Chamber Orchestra, Racine Symphony. I have guest conducted in lots of places.

I sort of gave up conducting in 2002 through burnout, politics, and discontent, but didn’t quite stop. I took time to write several compositions, and am now re-engaging with conducting as a focus.

I am also much interested in philosophy, especially as arising from Karl Popper, and have spoken at several conferences on that. I think it is important, as philosophical errors lie at the basis of many problems in music, such as the debacle of ‘new music’, the self-generating antipathy towards conductors and the equally puzzling adulation of them by audiences, and that whole crucial question as to “whom are we playing FOR?”

The 2011-2012 season is Neal Gittleman's 17th year as Music Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Gittleman has led the orchestra to new levels of artistic achievement and increasing acclaim throughout the country. American Record Guide magazine has praised the orchestra's performance as has the Cincinnati Enquirer, which called the DPO "a precise, glowing machine." When the Orchestra christened the Mead Theatre in the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in March of 2003, the Enquirer reported that "Gittleman has brought the DPO to a new level." During his tenure, the orchestra has received nine ASCAP awards from the American Symphony Orchestra League for adventurous programming.

Prior to his arrival in Dayton, Gittleman served as Music Director of the Marion (IN) Philharmonic, Associate Conductor of the Syracuse Symphony, and Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, a post he held under the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program. He also served ten seasons as Associate Conductor and Resident Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

Neal Gittleman has appeared as guest conductor with many of the country's leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago, San Francisco, Minnesota, Phoenix, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Omaha, San Jose and Jacksonville symphony orchestras and the Buffalo Philharmonic. He has also conducted orchestras in Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Neal graduated from Yale University in 1975. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Annette Dieudonné in Paris, with Hugh Ross at the Manhattan School of Music and with Charles Bruck at both the Pierre Monteux School and the Hartt School of Music, where he was a Karl Böhm Fellow. It was at the Hartt School that he earned his Arts Diploma in Orchestral Conducting. He won the Second Prize at the 1984 Ernest Ansermet International Conducting Competition in Geneva and Third Prize in the 1986 Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition in New York.

At home in the pit as well as on stage, Neal has led productions for Dayton Opera, the Human Race Theatre Company, Syracuse Opera Company, Hartt Opera Theater, and for Milwaukee's renowned Skylight Opera Theatre. He has also conducted for the Milwaukee Ballet, Hartford Ballet, Chicago City Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and Theater Ballet of Canada.

Neal is nationally known for his Classical Connections programs, which provide a "behind the scenes” look at the great works of the orchestral repertoire. These innovative programs, which began in Milwaukee 22 years ago, have become a vital part of the Dayton Philharmonic's concert season.

His discography includes a recording of the Dayton Philharmonic in performances of Tomas Svoboda's two piano concertos with Norman Krieger and the composer as featured soloists. Gittleman has also recorded a CD of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F with Krieger and the Czech National Symphony. Both recordings are available on the Artisie 4 label. The DPO's second CD, A Celebration of Flight was released in 2003 as part of the celebration of the centennial of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight. The orchestra’s most recent CD, of live archival performances from four eras, released in 2008 in conjunction with the DPO’s 75th anniversary.

When not on the podium, Neal is an avid player of golf, squash and t'ai chi ch'uan and has added yoga to his regimen. He and his wife, Lisa Fry, have been Dayton residents since 1997.

Few artists are as important to the fabric of their communities as JoAnn Falletta. Acclaimed by The New York Times as “one of the finest conductors of her generation”, she serves as the Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Falletta has been invited to guest conduct many of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. Highlights of her recent and upcoming guest conducting appearances include her debuts with the Orchestra National de Belgique, the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, the Dallas Symphony, the Orchestre National De Lyon, the Northwest German Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Lisbon Metropolitan Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony and the Seoul Philharmonic, and return engagements with the Seattle, Utah, San Antonio, Louisville and Colorado Symphony Orchestras, the Orchestra of Asturias (Spain), the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan), and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. She has guest conducted over 100 orchestras in North America. Highlights of her recent North American guest conducting appearances include the orchestras of Philadelphia, Montreal, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Indianapolis, and the National Symphony.

Ms. Falletta is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards, including the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award for exceptionally gifted American conductors, the coveted Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter Awards for conducting. She is an ardent champion of music of our time, introducing over 400 works by American composers, including more than 80 world premieres, and has received nine awards from ASCAP for creative programming, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award.

Maestro Falletta’s 2007/08 season with the Buffalo Philharmonic will be a prolific recording period, with the Orchestra recording four CDs and releasing two new discs on the Naxos label, including a world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s [i]Mr. Tambourine Man[/i] and the international release of a disc of the works of Ottorino Respighi. Continuing to raise the BPO’s national and international prominence, Ms. Falletta will once again lead the orchestra in a number of concerts to be broadcast nationally on NPR’s Performance Today and SymphonyCast, and international broadcasts through the European Broadcasting Union. This season will see the release of two new recordings by the Virginia Symphony: the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Norman Krieger, and Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Massenet’s Meditation with violinist Michael Ludwig.

Maestro Falletta’s growing discography, which includes over 40 titles, consists of recordings with the London Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony, the Long Beach Symphony, the Czech National Symphony, the Philadelphia Philharmonia and the Women’s Philharmonic, among others. In addition to her upcoming releases with the BPO and the VSO, Ms. Falletta’s current projects include her first recording with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for the Naxos label, featuring the violin concertos of Dohnanyi. Other upcoming releases for this season include a world premiere recording of the orchestral music of Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony to be released on the Naxos label, and a recording of the music of Paul Schoenfield with the Prague Philharmonia. This summer, the Virginia Arts Festival released [i]Borrowed Treasures[/i], Ms. Falletta’s third disc of chamber music for guitar, featuring Ms. Falletta as guitarist.

Together with English Horn soloist Thomas Stacy and the London Symphony Orchestra, Falletta received a 2006 Grammy nomination for Eventide (Concerto for English Horn, Percussion, Harp, Celesta and String Orchestra) by Kenneth Fuchs, from the CD An American Place (Naxos American Classics).

Ms. Falletta received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes School of Music in New York, and her master’s and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School.

For more information on Ms. Falletta, visit her website at www.joannfalletta.com.

Robert Levine has been the Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony since September 1987. Before coming to Milwaukee Mr. Levine had been a member of the Orford String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Toronto, with whom he toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. Prior to joining the Orford Quartet, Mr. Levine had served as Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for six years. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, and the Oklahoma City Symphony, as well as serving as guest principal with the orchestras of Indianapolis and Hong Kong.

He has performed as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, the Midsummer Mozart Festival (San Francisco), and numerous community orchestras in Northern California and Minnesota. He has also been featured on American Public Radio's nationally broadcast show "St. Paul Sunday Morning" on several occasions.

Mr. Levine has been an active chamber musician, having performed at the Festival Rolandseck in Germany, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Palm Beach Festival, the "Strings in the Mountains" Festival in Colorado, and numerous concerts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. He has also been active in the field of new music, having commissioned and premiered works for viola and orchestra from Minnesota composers Janika Vandervelde and Libby Larsen.

Mr. Levine was chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians from 1996 to 2002 and currently serves as President of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, Local 8 of the American Federation of Musicians, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. He has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for publications of ICSOM, the AFM, the Symphony Orchestra Institute, and the League of American Orchestras.

Mr. Levine attended Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland. His primary teachers were Aaron Sten and Pamela Goldsmith. He also studied with Paul Doctor, Walter Trampler, Bruno Giuranna, and David Abel.

He lives with his wife Emily and his son Sam in Glendale.

Geoffrey Moull is Music Director of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. With an increasing artistic reputation built solidly on audience success, the ensemble has grown to become one of the best regional orchestras in the country. Under the direction of Mr. Moull, the CBC now broadcasts the TBSO regularly on national radio; their CD recording of Canadian compositions Variations on a Memory was nominated for a Juno Award in 2005.

Prior to his Thunder Bay appointment, Mr. Moull was Principal Conductor of the Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera in Germany. His international conducting career has included performances with such renowned ensembles as the Southwest German Radio Orchestra, the State Opera Hannover, the State Opera Berlin, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Pays de la Loire, the Metz Opera, the German Rhine Opera, the Luxemburg Opera, the San Remo Symphony, the Szombathely Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Springfield Symphony and the International May Festival in Wiesbaden.

Mr. Moull's innovative spirit has led him to program and conduct many premiere performances, and he is responsible for the rediscovery of important compositions of the 19th and 20th century, including works of Berlioz, Schumann, Mahler, D'Albert, Schreker, Martinu, Honegger, Krenek and Weill. In addition to recording for both radio and television, his world premiere CD recordings of Louis Spohr's Faust and Theo Loevendie's [i]Esmée[/i] were received with international acclaim. Das Orchester, Germany's leading music magazine, wrote that "his interpretation was magnificent, with wonderful judging of phrasing, atmosphere and warmth" and he is the recipient of Opernwelt's "Opera Production of the Year" prize.

After earning a degree in conducting at McGill University in Montreal, Mr. Moull was awarded the coveted DAAD scholarship of the German government and completed post-graduate degrees in both conducting and piano at the State Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany. He studied with Franco Ferrara, Sergiu Celibidache, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Edward Downes and Kyrill Kondrashin. In the course of his career, Mr. Moull was also Associate Music Director of the Münster Symphony and Opera and Principal Conductor of the Trier Symphony and Opera. Also active as a music educator, he was Music Director of the Orchestra of the State Hochschule für Musik in Münster and has given master classes for the State Music Councils of Bavaria and the Rhineland, and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

The 2011-2012 season is Neal Gittleman's 17th year as Music Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Gittleman has led the orchestra to new levels of artistic achievement and increasing acclaim throughout the country. American Record Guide magazine has praised the orchestra's performance as has the Cincinnati Enquirer, which called the DPO "a precise, glowing machine." When the Orchestra christened the Mead Theatre in the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in March of 2003, the Enquirer reported that "Gittleman has brought the DPO to a new level." During his tenure, the orchestra has received nine ASCAP awards from the American Symphony Orchestra League for adventurous programming.

Prior to his arrival in Dayton, Gittleman served as Music Director of the Marion (IN) Philharmonic, Associate Conductor of the Syracuse Symphony, and Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, a post he held under the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program. He also served ten seasons as Associate Conductor and Resident Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

Neal Gittleman has appeared as guest conductor with many of the country's leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago, San Francisco, Minnesota, Phoenix, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Omaha, San Jose and Jacksonville symphony orchestras and the Buffalo Philharmonic. He has also conducted orchestras in Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Neal graduated from Yale University in 1975. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Annette Dieudonné in Paris, with Hugh Ross at the Manhattan School of Music and with Charles Bruck at both the Pierre Monteux School and the Hartt School of Music, where he was a Karl Böhm Fellow. It was at the Hartt School that he earned his Arts Diploma in Orchestral Conducting. He won the Second Prize at the 1984 Ernest Ansermet International Conducting Competition in Geneva and Third Prize in the 1986 Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition in New York.

At home in the pit as well as on stage, Neal has led productions for Dayton Opera, the Human Race Theatre Company, Syracuse Opera Company, Hartt Opera Theater, and for Milwaukee's renowned Skylight Opera Theatre. He has also conducted for the Milwaukee Ballet, Hartford Ballet, Chicago City Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and Theater Ballet of Canada.

Neal is nationally known for his Classical Connections programs, which provide a "behind the scenes” look at the great works of the orchestral repertoire. These innovative programs, which began in Milwaukee 22 years ago, have become a vital part of the Dayton Philharmonic's concert season.

His discography includes a recording of the Dayton Philharmonic in performances of Tomas Svoboda's two piano concertos with Norman Krieger and the composer as featured soloists. Gittleman has also recorded a CD of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F with Krieger and the Czech National Symphony. Both recordings are available on the Artisie 4 label. The DPO's second CD, A Celebration of Flight was released in 2003 as part of the celebration of the centennial of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight. The orchestra’s most recent CD, of live archival performances from four eras, released in 2008 in conjunction with the DPO’s 75th anniversary.

When not on the podium, Neal is an avid player of golf, squash and t'ai chi ch'uan and has added yoga to his regimen. He and his wife, Lisa Fry, have been Dayton residents since 1997.

Few artists are as important to the fabric of their communities as JoAnn Falletta. Acclaimed by The New York Times as “one of the finest conductors of her generation”, she serves as the Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Falletta has been invited to guest conduct many of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. Highlights of her recent and upcoming guest conducting appearances include her debuts with the Orchestra National de Belgique, the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, the Dallas Symphony, the Orchestre National De Lyon, the Northwest German Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Lisbon Metropolitan Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony and the Seoul Philharmonic, and return engagements with the Seattle, Utah, San Antonio, Louisville and Colorado Symphony Orchestras, the Orchestra of Asturias (Spain), the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan), and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. She has guest conducted over 100 orchestras in North America. Highlights of her recent North American guest conducting appearances include the orchestras of Philadelphia, Montreal, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Indianapolis, and the National Symphony.

Ms. Falletta is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards, including the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award for exceptionally gifted American conductors, the coveted Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter Awards for conducting. She is an ardent champion of music of our time, introducing over 400 works by American composers, including more than 80 world premieres, and has received nine awards from ASCAP for creative programming, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award.

Maestro Falletta’s 2007/08 season with the Buffalo Philharmonic will be a prolific recording period, with the Orchestra recording four CDs and releasing two new discs on the Naxos label, including a world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s [i]Mr. Tambourine Man[/i] and the international release of a disc of the works of Ottorino Respighi. Continuing to raise the BPO’s national and international prominence, Ms. Falletta will once again lead the orchestra in a number of concerts to be broadcast nationally on NPR’s Performance Today and SymphonyCast, and international broadcasts through the European Broadcasting Union. This season will see the release of two new recordings by the Virginia Symphony: the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Norman Krieger, and Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Massenet’s Meditation with violinist Michael Ludwig.

Maestro Falletta’s growing discography, which includes over 40 titles, consists of recordings with the London Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony, the Long Beach Symphony, the Czech National Symphony, the Philadelphia Philharmonia and the Women’s Philharmonic, among others. In addition to her upcoming releases with the BPO and the VSO, Ms. Falletta’s current projects include her first recording with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for the Naxos label, featuring the violin concertos of Dohnanyi. Other upcoming releases for this season include a world premiere recording of the orchestral music of Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony to be released on the Naxos label, and a recording of the music of Paul Schoenfield with the Prague Philharmonia. This summer, the Virginia Arts Festival released [i]Borrowed Treasures[/i], Ms. Falletta’s third disc of chamber music for guitar, featuring Ms. Falletta as guitarist.

Together with English Horn soloist Thomas Stacy and the London Symphony Orchestra, Falletta received a 2006 Grammy nomination for Eventide (Concerto for English Horn, Percussion, Harp, Celesta and String Orchestra) by Kenneth Fuchs, from the CD An American Place (Naxos American Classics).

Ms. Falletta received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes School of Music in New York, and her master’s and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School.

For more information on Ms. Falletta, visit her website at www.joannfalletta.com.

William Eddins is Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. A native of Buffalo NY, he currently resides in Minneapolis with his lovely wife Jen, a clarinetist, and their two boys Raef (AKA Raefster; Munchers) and Riley (AKA Squeaky; The Imp; Dr. No).

Bill has been playing piano since he was five when his parents bought a Wurlitzer Grand piano at a garage sale. He started conducting during his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music, and most of the '80s were spent trying to decide whether to pursue a career in conducting or piano. The quandary was answered for him when he realized that the life of a poor, starving pianist was for the birds. In 1989 Bill decided to study conducting with Dan Lewis at the University of Southern California, from whence he managed to land assistant conductor posts with the Chicago Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra in 1992.

Bill has many non-musical hobbies including: cooking, eating, discussing food, and planning dinner parties. He is also quite fond of biking, tennis, reading, and pinball. Unfortunately, due to pianistic paranoia his days in the martial arts are long over.

Bill is committed to bringing classical music to the greater public. He has started a podcast – Classical Connections – which is dedicated to exploring the history of classical music and highlights live chamber music performances in which Bill has taken part (check it out for yourself at Bill Eddins' website ). He has also produced a solo piano CD – Bad Boys, Volume I – which features Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata and Albright's Nightmare Fantasy Rag.