Stefan Sanderling, Music Director
The Jay B. and Marsha Starkey Chair
Stuart Malina, Coffee Concert Conductor
The R.K. Bailey Chair
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. Following his May 2011 Carnegie Hall debut with the Toledo Symphony, The New York Times said, “Stefan Sanderling…conducted a brilliant performance… the evening was a genuine coup for the orchestra and its gifted conductor.” He also served as the music director of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2010.
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.
Stuart Malina, Coffee Concert Conductor
Now entering his 12th season as music director and conductor of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Stuart Malina has built a reputation for orchestra building and multi-faceted versatility. In a wide variety of concerts, from masterworks and grand opera to pops, Maestro Malina’s ease on the podium, engaging personality, and insightful interpretations have thrilled audiences and helped to break down the barriers between performer and listener wherever he has worked. Maestro Malina was previously music director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (1996-2003) and associate conductor of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (1993-97).
This upcoming season, Maestro Malina will begin an association with The Florida Orchestra, leading eight concerts, including the orchestra’s highly acclaimed Coffee series. This past summer he conducted at the Sarasota Music Festival and returned for the fifth time to conduct the Chautauqua Institution Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in February of 2007, conducting the New York Pops in an all-Gershwin tribute including Rhapsody in Blue, which he conducted from the keyboard, and returned to Carnegie and the Pops in October of 2007. He has recently performed with the symphony orchestras of Hong Kong, Naples, New Mexico, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Charleston and Greensboro. Maestro Malina has had multiple engagements with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Eastern Music Festival, at which he conducted the world premiere of Billy Joel’s Symphonic Fantasies for Piano and Orchestra. In 2006, he debuted with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and in 2007 with the Naples Philharmonic, after which he was reengaged for concerts in 2008 and 2009. He led the Shippensburg Festival Orchestra for three seasons, the second time performing with violinist Joshua Bell for a broadcast on PA Public Television. He has also appeared with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s (NY), Kansas City Symphony, Youngstown Symphony, AIMS Festival Orchestra (Graz, Austria), North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra and the Queens Symphony Orchestra.
On the opera podium Maestro Malina’s recent production engagements include Opera Delaware (Porgy and Bess), Piedmont Opera (Massenet’s Manon) and Greensboro Opera (Il barbiere di Siviglia). He will return to Opera Delaware this coming spring. He has also conducted many operas in concert, including La Bohème, Tosca and several Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. He has conducted several ballets as well with the Charleston Ballet and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet.
In May of 2008, Maestro Malina, with several members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, spent 11 days in residence at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music in Tianjin, China, conducting the orchestra and coaching and performing chamber music. He also served as visiting conducting faculty at Penn State University for the fall semester of 2008.
In 2009, Pennsylvania Public Television awarded Maestro Malina with the Joanne Rogers Award for contribution to the artistic life of Pennsylvania, and in 2010, he was given the Jump Street Spectrum Award for excellence in the arts.
An accomplished pianist, Maestro Malina has impressive credits as soloist and chamber musician. He has performed concertos in Harrisburg, Greensboro, Charleston, New York and Chautauqua, most often conducting from the keyboard. His recent chamber music activities include annual performances for the Market Square Concert series, collaborating with the Fry Street Quartet, the Enzo Quartet, the Dorian Wind Quintet, and oboist Gerard Reuter; presentations of Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time on the Linton Series in Cincinnati, and recitals with violinist Alexander Kerr and cellists Zvi Plesser and Daniel Gaisford. He has been frequently engaged for the Music for a Great Space series in North Carolina, and was director of the acclaimed Piccolo Spoleto Contemporary Music Festival from 1993 to 1995.
As a composer and arranger, Maestro Malina has created dozens of orchestral works, ranging from entire pops shows to works for symphony orchestra. His most recent composition, Brahms Fan Fare, received its world premiere by the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra in May of 2011.
Maestro Malina’s activities also extend to Broadway. In June 2003, he won the TONY award for orchestration with Billy Joel for the musical Movin’ Out, which Malina helped create with director/choreographer Twyla Tharp. He has served as music supervisor for every production of the show, both in the United States and in London. Maestro Malina has also served as associate conductor of the national touring company of West Side Story and as conductor of the Charleston production of Porgy and Bess with performances throughout the United States, Canada, and at the Israel Festival in Caesarea. He has also directed the music for over twenty musical theater productions. In 1995, in a strange turn of events, Malina appeared on stage, acting opposite Broadway legend Zoe Caldwell in Terrence McNally’s Tony-winning drama Master Class for its run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Maestro Malina holds degrees from Harvard University, the Yale School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller. He studied piano with Drora and Baruch Arnon and with Keiko Sato.
