The Florida Orchestra

Stefan Sanderling, Music Director

The Jay B. and Marsha Starkey Chair

Stefan Sanderling has swiftly emerged as one of the leading German conductors of his generation. Since the beginning of the 2003/04 season, he has simultaneously occupied the positions of music director of The Florida Orchestra and principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. In 2007, he was appointed music director of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

As one of the youngest chief conductors in Germany, Sanderling first held this position at the Brandenburgische Philharmonie and the Potsdam Opera in 1990. After five years, he then went on to become music director and chief conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra and Staatstheater in Mainz until 2001. Between 1997 and 2004, he has also served as music director of the Orchestre de Bretagne in France.

Sanderling was born in East Berlin in 1964, the son of legendary conductor Kurt Sanderling. He studied musicology at the University of Halle and conducting at the conservatory in Leipzig before leaving East Germany to continue his studies in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California.

After the fall of the iron curtain, he returned to his native Germany where his career ascended rapidly. Sanderling has conducted the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony, NTO (Vienna), Mozarteum Orchestra (Salzburg), Prague Symphony, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berliner Staatskapelle, NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, Bamberg Symphony, Berliner Sinfonie Orchester and St. Petersburg Philharmonic. He has also guest conducted at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Komische Oper Berlin. He made his debuts in Australia with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and in Japan with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. His highly successful debut with the NHK Symphony of Tokyo has since resulted in regular appearances with this orchestra in Tokyo and throughout Japan.

Since his North American debut at the 1989 Tanglewood Summer Music Festival, he has led such prestigious North American orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and the orchestras of Indianapolis, Vancouver, Colorado, Salt Lake City and Ottawa, to name only a few.

Sanderling made his first recording on the Sony Classics label with the London Symphony Orchestra. Three CDs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have recently been released featuring symphonies by Haydn and Mendelssohn. He has recorded the complete Tchaikovsky Orchestral Suites and Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella on the Naxos label and has also completed several discs of works by the French composers Gretry, Gossec and Mehul and Ladmirault on the ASV and Arion label. His most recent recording, symphonies and tone poems by Honegger, has been released on Naxos.

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Alastair Willis, Coffee Concert Conductor

The R.K. Bailey Chair

Grammy-nominated conductor Alastair Willis served as the associate conductor of the Seattle Symphony from 2000 to 2003.  He previously held the position of assistant conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras and music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.

In the past few seasons, Willis has guest conducted orchestras around the world including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Mexico City Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfonica de Rio de Janeiro, Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, Cologne Opera, China National Symphony (Beijing), Hong Kong Sinfonietta, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, among others.  His recording of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges with Nashville Symphony and Opera for Naxos was Grammy nominated for Best Classical Album in 2009.

Last season, Willis returned to Skagit Opera, Washington to lead Madama Butterfly and made his debut with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonic, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the orchestras of Memphis, Richmond and Thunder Bay.

This season he returns to The Florida Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Tulsa Symphony, Civic Orchestra Chicago, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (Houston), Rio International Cello and Marrowstone Music Festivals, and makes his debuts with Toronto Symphony, Deutsche Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, and Amarillo Symphony.

Born in Acton, Massachusetts, Willis lived with his family in Moscow for five years before settling in Surrey, England.  He received his bachelor’s degree with honors from England’s Bristol University and an education degree from Kingston University.  He won a scholarship in 1996 to study with Larry Rachelff at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, graduating with a Master of Music degree in 1999.

The 2010/2011 season marks Willis’ third season conducting The Florida Orchestra’s Coffee Concerts series.

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Randal Swiggum, Youth Concert Conductor

Randal Swiggum returns for his second season conducting The Florida Orchestra in a series of twenty concerts for young people. This season’s concert is a fast-paced program which not only explores the idea of musical humor, but goes deeper into aspects of musical form, orchestral color, and how instrumental music functions like language.

Swiggum serves as Education Conductor for the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, one of America’s most acclaimed regional orchestras, working with the ESO’s Education and Artistic Departments to design education and community engagement programs. He is responsible for creating and conducting their annual Kidz Konzerts (for elementary students) and Music in the Middle (for middle school students) each year, as well as developing teacher guides and student materials. He also designs and conducts the concerts in ESO’s Family Fun Concert Series, which this year kicks off with a concert of music based on Russian folk tales. In 2010, as part of the ESO’s Exiles in Hollywood festival of film music composers, Swiggum will conduct an original program called Mickey, Yoda, and Robin Hood: The Magic of Movie Music, which explores aspects of symphonic music like tension and release, leitmotifs, characterization, and musical development.

Swiggum’s acclaimed concerts for youth have been praised by teachers and beloved by students for their imaginative approach in getting young people excited about orchestral music. Drawing upon a long career of teaching young people, Swiggum has created concerts like Dvorak in America, Traveling Music, The Amazing Mr. Copland, and Fascinating Rhythm—last season’s youth concert with The Florida Orchestra—which took on the challenge of isolating a single, abstract musical element and then looking at it in as many interesting ways as possible. These programs have resulted in invitations to conduct similar concerts around the world with The Aberdeen International Festival, the APAC Orchestra Festival in Seoul, Korea, the Boise Philharmonic, and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, among others.

As Music Director for the award-winning Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra, Swiggum oversees orchestral programs and chamber music for nearly 300 students, ages 9 to 23. The EYSO has distinguished itself for innovative programming and artistic quality, as well as for a comprehensive approach to repertoire and rehearsals. The 2009-10 season, Sonic Cathedral, explores the relationships between music and architecture. It will feature in-depth study and performance of works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Mendelssohn, Handel, and Jennifer Higdon as well as Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 and the Brahms Requiem.

Swiggum has conducted throughout Europe, South America, and southeast Asia. He has music directed over thirty stage works including the premiere of the Theatre X opera, Liberace. He created original music for celebrated director Eric Simonsen’s new production of Moby Dick for the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, named by TIME magazine as one of the 10 Best American Theatrical Productions of 2002. Swiggum has long been an advocate of “aiming high” with expectations for music education and youth. A leader in the CMP initiative (Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance), he is the author of several books and numerous articles for teachers and musicians. He has twice served on the YOD Board of the League of American Orchestras. He makes his home in Madison, Wisconsin, where he also conducts the Madison Boychoir, and is a Ph.D. dissertator in musicology.

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