Out of nearly 200 applications that were submitted, the GBSO's Music Director Search Committee has chosen four finalists who will conduct concerts during the GBSO's 2010/11 season as part of the competitive application process.
"The search for the GBSO's next artistic leader drew considerable interest and we're looking forward to having four extraordinary finalists visit us next season," says GBSO Board Member and Music Director Search Committee Chair, Jean VandeHey.
Over the past year, the GBSO's search committee, comprised of board members, musicians, and community members, met to review candidates supporting materials, watch DVD's of applicants in performance, check references, and conduct Skype video and telephone interviews to narrow the field. From this process, four finalists have been selected: Morihiko Nakahara, Victor Yampolsky, Donato Cabrera, and Stephen Squires.
Each finalist will make a week-long visit to Green Bay during the GBSO's 2010/11 season for a series of further interviews, community appearances, and an opportunity to conduct the Orchestra.
"The time we spend with each of the candidates here in Green Bay will not only be a chance for us to interview them further, but for each candidate to get to know us and to know our community," says VandeHey. "Our board and our search committee will certainly want to garner as much audience and community input into each candidate as possible. We want people to tell us what they think about our next artistic leader."
Click here to read more About the Search
Meet our Candidates
Morihiko Nakahara — Conducting the GBSO on October 9, 2010
Recognized by critics, orchestras, and audiences alike as “a brilliant young conductor” (Free Times) with “a poet’s sensitivity and a craftsman’s efficiency” (Spokeman-Review), Morihiko Nakahara has served as Music Director of the South Carolina Philharmonic since 2008. Their first two seasons together generated dynamic artistic growth, rising ticket sales, and increasing recognition and excitement for the organization both locally and nationally. Recent contract renewal will keep him with the SC Phil at least through the 2014-2015 season. The 2010-2011 season also marks Nakahara’s eighth season with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, first as its Associate Conductor and now as Resident Conductor.
Increasingly regarded as a leading young conductor equally at home in a wide range of repertoire and concert formats, Nakahara was featured in the League of American Orchestra’s prestigious Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview in March 2005, hosted by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Since then, he has developed a close working relationship with the JSO, conducting the orchestra annually and serving as its Associate Conductor during the 2007-08 season. As a guest conductor, Nakahara has led the symphonies of Toledo, Lansing, Peoria, Lubbock, Southwest Michigan, Billings, and Missoula, as well as the Chicago Pro Musica and the Lexington Philharmonic. During the current season, he will appear with the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra and the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra.
Known for his charismatic presence on and off the podium, innovative and audience-friendly programming skills, and thoughtful interpretations of both standard and contemporary repertoire, Nakahara’s current season includes a world premiere of Double Concerto by John Fitz Rogers (SC Phil commission funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts) and a regional premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s new work in addition to a wide range of standard symphonic repertoire. In the symphonic pops realm, Nakahara has recently collaborated with such artists as Brandi Carlile, Chris Botti, and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones.
Acclaimed as a versatile artist and a passionate believer in music education for all ages, Nakahara has designed and conducted numerous educational and community engagement concerts. Nakahara is also a popular guest conductor and clinician with youth orchestras, collegiate ensembles, and high school honor orchestras/bands, including the Boston University Tanglewood Institute's Young Artist Orchestra. As a personable ambassador for classical music, Nakahara makes frequent appearances on local media outlets as well as at local businesses and service organizations.
A native of Kagoshima, Japan, Nakahara holds degrees from Andrews University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He previously as Music Director of the Holland Symphony Orchestra in Michigan and taught at Eastern Washington University and Andrews University. He resides in Columbia, SC.
Victor Yampolsky — Conducting the GBSO on November 13, 2010
Esteemed teacher, conductor, and violinist, Victor Yampolsky serves as Carol F. and Arthur L. Rice Jr. University Professor in Music Performance at the Northwestern University School of Music, Music Director of the Peninsula Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, Music Director Emeritus of the Omaha Symphony, as well as the Honorary Director of the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Born in the Soviet Union in 1942, Yampolsky, the son of the great pianist Vladimir Yampolsky, studied violin with the legendary David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory and conducting with Maestro Nicolai Rabinovich at the Leningrad Conservatory. He was a member of the Moscow Philharmonic as both violinist and assistant conductor, under the direction of renowned Maestro Kyrill Kondrashin.
Yampolsky emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1973, where a recommendation from conductor Zubin Mehta led to an audition for Leonard Bernstein, who offered Yampolsky his scholarship at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusets. Two weeks later, Bernstein offered Mr. Yampolsky a position in the violin section of the Boston Symphony. He was later appointed the orchestra's principal second violinist.
In 1977, Mr. Yampolsky became Music Director of the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was the conductor of the Young Artists Orchestra at Tanglewood. Two years later he became Adjunct Professor of Violin and Director of Orchestras at the Boston University School of Music. Since 1979, he has participated in the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax as violinist and conductor, celebrating the Festival's 25 years with the performance of Oliver Messiaen's Turangailia Symphony on June 13, 2004.
Yampolsky has conducted over 70 professional and student orchestras throughout the world, including repeated engagements with orchestras in the United States, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and Chile. Forthcoming engagements include debut with the Green Bay Symphony and return visits to KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic and Cape Philharmonic (Durban and Cape Town, South Africa). In 2007-2008, Yampolsky was invited to serve as guest professor of conducting at the State Conservatory of Saint Petersburg.
This past year Mr. Yampolsky also gave lectures and master classes at: Emory University, University of Akron, University of Victoria, Stellenbosch Conservatory, as well as Cape Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in Cape Town, South Africa.
In April 2008, Mr. Yampolsky served as a juror of the Prokofiev International Conducting Competition in St.Petersburg, Russia.
Since 1984, Yampolsky has been Director of Orchestras at Northwestern University, finishing 20 years of service with the performance of Mahler's 9th Symphony on 4 June 2004 and producing first DVD of the symphony concert on January 27, 2007. From 1992 to 1997 he directed the Storioni Ensemble, a professional string ensemble in residence at Northwestern University. Since 1986, Yampolsky has been Music Director of the Peninsula Music Festival, in Door County, Wisconsin. In 1993-94 he served as Principal Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Johannesburg and from 1995 until 2004 he served as Music Director of the Omaha Symphony, a period of significant artistic growth for the orchestra. In 2002, Yampolsky led the Omaha Symphony in its debut recording, Take Flight and the following year in the world premiere of Philip Glass's Second Piano Concerto, which received an award of the Nebraska Arts Council. He holds an honorary doctorate from University of Nebraska at Omaha and Doane College in Crete, Nebraska.
In addition to his conducting and teaching obligations, Mr. Yampolsky has been a Panel Member of the League of American Orchestras Conductors Continuum Committee helping young talented conductors in the USA.
Yampolsky has recorded for Pyramid and Kiwi-Pacific Records.
Victor Yampolsky currently lives in Evanston, Illinois, with his wife, Carol, and two children.
Stephen Squires — Conducting the GBSO on February 12, 2011
Stephen Squires is a musician with a career that blends his passions for conducting, teaching, and performing. As a professional conductor, Mr. Squires has worked with many exceptional artists, including Samuel Ramey, Janos Starker, Pinchas Zuckerman, Frederica von Stade, Shmuel Ashkenasi, John Browning, Leon Bates, Stewart Goodyear, Richard Stoltzman, Ani Kavafian, Wendy Warner, James Tocco, Richard Stillwell, and most of the principal players of the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera Orchestras. Fully committed to conducting the music of living composers, he has premiered over thirty new works.
Mr. Squires received his musical training at the Preparatory School of the Eastman School of Music and the Crane School of Music, in his home state of New York. He earned his Master's degree in Instrumental Conducting/Trumpet Performance at California State University, Northridge. Further conducting studies were with Helmuth Rilling, Maurice Abravanel, Daniel Lewis, Tsung Yeh, and at the Aspen Music Festival. Mr. Squires has conducted recordings for the Delos, Spring Hill (a division of EMI), MEDR, Editions de la Rue Margot, and Centaur labels. The most recent recording that he conducted, with the Millar Brass Ensemble, featured his own arrangements for brass and those of Millar's former Music Director, Vincent Cichowicz.
Stephen Squires is the Principal Conductor and Professor of Conducting in the Music Conservatory at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University. At CCPA, Mr. Squires conducts the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra and Wind Ensemble. The Chicago College of Performing Arts, whose prestigious faculty includes most of the principal players of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is one of a handful of American music schools offering a program specifically designed to prepare students for careers as orchestral players.
A conductor active in orchestral, operatic, wind, and ballet music, Mr. Squires' current professional appointments include Associate Conductor of the Elgin (IL) Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra (Rockford, IL), Principal Conductor of the Salt Creek Ballet Company (Chicago, IL), Music Director of the Illinois Brass Band (Chicago, IL), and Music Director of the Millar Brass (Evanston, IL). He is the former Music Director of the Illinois Chamber Symphony. Mr. Squires made has guest conducted the Syracuse Symphony, the Green Bay Symphony and conducted last season with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Michael Tilson Thomas in Charles Ives "Holiday Symphony." In addition to his varied conducting endeavors, he is an accomplished recital accompanist and freelance trumpeter.
Donato Cabrera — Conducting the GBSO on April 9, 2011
Donato Cabrera joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2009 as Assistant Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the Youth Orchestra. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in April 2009, when he stepped in on short notice to lead the Orchestra in a program of Mozart and the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition. This season, Mr. Cabrera leads the Orchestra in performances accompanying Charlie Chaplin's film The Gold Rush; during the summer, he will conduct concerts for the Summer & the Symphony series. Mr. Cabrera also conducts the Orchestra in Concerts for Kids, Adventures in Music, and Music for Families concerts, in addition to leading SFS Youth Orchestra rehearsals and concerts.
From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Cabrera was associate conductor of the San Francisco Opera, where he participated in the world premiere of John Adams's Doctor Atomic and conducted performances of Die Fledermaus, Don Giovanni, Tannhäuser, and The Magic Flute. He has also been an assistant and cover conductor for projects at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Ballet. Mr. Cabrera is one of few conductors who have conducted performances at all three San Francisco institutions: the Symphony, Opera, and Ballet.
Mr. Cabrera made his South American debut in 2008, conducting Madama Butterfly with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Concepción in Chile; those performances led to an invitation to conduct the ensemble's 2009 production of Lucia di Lammermoor as well as the final concert of their symphonic season. In December 2009, he made his debut with the San Francisco Ballet, conducting performances of The Nutcracker. A champion of new music, Mr. Cabrera was co-founder and music director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), and has led that ensemble in works of John Adams, Jacob Druckman, Donald Martino, Frederic Rzewski, and Elliott Carter.
Donato Cabrera has long been dedicated to music education and community outreach. For four seasons, he programmed and conducted Young People's Concerts for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he has conducted the Preparatory Orchestra of the Juilliard School, as well as the youth orchestras of Newark, Cincinnati, Norwalk, and Ridgefield. Mr. Cabrera has also worked with singers in the young artist programs of the San Francisco Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Portland Opera.
In March 2009, Mr. Cabrera was asked to be one of eight participants in the biennial 2009 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, leading the Nashville Symphony over two days in a variety of works. In 2002, Mr. Cabrera was a Herbert von Karajan Conducting Fellow for the Salzburg Festival. He has been assistant conductor at numerous summer festivals, including the Ravinia, Spoleto (Italy), and Aspen festivals, and he has served as resident conductor at the Music Academy of the West.
Donato Cabrera holds a bachelor's degree in music from the University of Nevada, Reno; a master's degree in conducting from the University of Illinois; and has pursued graduate studies in conducting at Indiana University, Bloomington, and the Manhattan School of Music.