Guest Conductors
The Windsor Symphony Orchestra is pleased to feature the following Guest Conductors for the 2011/2012 Season
Jeffrey Pollock - Conducting Intimate Classics, November 4-6
Jeffrey Pollock is a conductor known for the musicality of his performances, his innovative concert programming, and for his ability to make connections with audiences. In 2001, he was chosen by the League of American Orchestras to be featured in their prestigious National Conductor Preview. Since that time, he has worked with orchestras all across North America including the Houston, Nashville, Charlotte, Cleveland Chamber, Kitchener-Waterloo and Niagara Symphony orchestras and has also given chamber orchestra performances with members of the Baltimore Symphony and the Tulsa Philharmonic. As an opera conductor, he has worked with the Baltimore Opera Company, Opera Delaware and the Opera Company
of North Carolina and has led productions of The Barber of Seville, The Turn of the Screw, and Cavalleria Rusticana.
While he was the Associate Conductor with the Fort Worth Symphony, he created a brand-new series of sold-out family and education concerts and conducted a wide variety of classical and pops concerts. As music director for the York Symphony Orchestra, his non-traditional programming attracted new audiences and brought critical acclaim for the orchestra. He has also been invited to return numerous times to conduct the North Carolina Symphony, where he had formerly been Assistant Conductor for three seasons.
Pollock’s education took place at the Peabody Conservatory of Music as a student of Frederik Prausnitz, with subsequent teaching from noted conducting instructor Gustav Meier. His first conducting experiences took place
Kevin Mallon - Conducting Intimate Classics, December 9-11
Irish musician Kevin Mallon, now resident in Canada, is quickly developing a worldwide reputation. His latest appointment, in 2010, was as Music Director with one of Canada’s premier chamber ensembles, Ottawa’s Thirteen Strings.
With an impressive background that includes conducting studies with John Eliot Gardiner and composition with Peter Maxwell Davies, he trained at Chetham’s School of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and at Dartington College of Arts. Mallon learned his craft as a violinist with such orchestras as the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic, and later as Concertmaster with Le Concert Spirituel and Les Arts Florissants in Paris. With these groups he recorded extensively and toured the world. He has performed concerts all over Europe, including Vienna, London, Berlin and Paris, with appearances in Russia, the Baltic States, China, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and Canada.
In 1996, Kevin Mallon formed and became the Music Director of the Aradia Ensemble. This vocal and instrumental group has achieved extraordinary success, with 40 recordings for Naxos, all of which have received international praise (including two British Gramophone Editors’ Choice Awards). The ensemble
presents a regular concert series at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio and makes frequent tours in both Canada and abroad - being featured in 2000 at the New Zealand International Chamber Music Festival, in 2003 at the Musica nel Chiostro festival in Tuscany and to the USA in 2004. Most recently Aradia has become Orchestra in Residence for the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (COSI), with Mallon conducting.
Although Maestro Mallon specializes in music of the Baroque period, he is much in demand, conducting a wide range of repertoire. As part of his recording contract with Naxos, he is Music Director of the Toronto Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has already made fifteen recordings, one of which gained a Juno Award nomination for a Haydn Symphonies CD in 2009.
Kevin Mallon led Toronto’s Opera in Concert in many baroque and classical operas: Handel’s Semele, Rinaldo, Tamerlano, and Giulio Cesare, Vivaldi’s Griselda, Rameau’s Castor et Pollux and Mozart’s Zaide. He has also developed a specialty in Viennese Operetta, having conducted many performances for Toronto Operetta Theatre (Wiener Blut, Merry Widow and Count of Luxembourg).
From 2004- 2009 Mallon was the Artistic Director of Opera 2005 in Cork, Ireland, formed to celebrate Cork’s designation as European Capital of Culture. This company flourished under his tenure, garnering three Irish Times Theatre Awards (Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Rossini’s Barber of Seville, Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera). The company also mounted productions of Bizet’s Carmen (2005), Weill’s Threepenny Opera (2006), Lehar’s Merry Widow (2007) and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2007).
In 2009 Kevin became Special Projects and Touring Conductor for the Odessa Opera in Ukraine. Under his direction, productions of Don Giovanni and Carmen took place in Odessa as well as tours of Holland, Belgium and Spain.
In 2010 Kevin was invited to compose and arrange music for a new TV series – Camelot, another innovative project by “The Tudors” company.
Mr. Mallon looks forward to a busy schedule of upcoming Guest Conducting engagements both in Canada (Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Niagara Symphony, Windsor Symphony Orchestra) and internationally in Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the USA.
Bradley Thachuk - Conducting Pops, March 3 & 4
Bradley Thachuk joins the Niagara Symphony as Music Director & Principal Conductor in the 2011-2012 Season.
In this position, Maestro Thachuk will be responsible for all artistic aspects including programming, guest artist selection and personnel. As the eighth Music Director & Principal Conductor in the Symphony’s sixty-three year history, his role will be key in revitalizing the Symphony’s relationship within the community as it awaits, with eager anticipation, its new home in the Niagara Arts Centre.
Maestro Thachuk’s extensive responsibilities in Fort Wayne have included conducting and programming classical, pops, education and outreach concerts, serving as Music Director of the Fort Wayne Youth Orchestra and conducting for the Fort Wayne Ballet.
Recent guest conducting engagements (with very positive reviews) include the Richmond (Virginia) Symphony, the Windsor (Ontario) and the Reading (Pennsylvania) Symphony – where he was immediately re-engaged for a future performance.
Previous conducting work includes positions as interim Music Director of the Prince George Symphony Orchestra and conducting assistant for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, maintaining an association with both orchestras as a cover conductor. From 2000-2002 he was Opera Conductor for Miami University in Ohio, and from 1995-1998 served as Music Director for the Brampton Symphony Orchestra.
In 2005, he was chosen from an international field by legendary violinist/conductor Pinchas Zukerman and world-renowned conducting teacher Jorma Panula to conduct Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra as part of a young conductor showcase concert. In June of 1998, at the Orchestras Canada Conference, he was selected to lead the Kitchener-Waterloo Orchestra at the Young Conductors Showcase.
Maestro Thachuk made his European debut conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Hradec Kralove Philharmonic in the Czech Republic and has also appeared as Guest Conductor with orchestras in Slovakia, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal and across the United States.
A conductor of diverse interests and abilities, and a much sought-after symphonic arranger, Bradley Thachuk has conducted opera for Portland Opera Works (Oregon) and Theatre Lucca (Italy) where he served as Resident Conductor for two seasons. (During the course of his career, he has worked in English, French, Italian and German.)
An ardent champion of contemporary music, Maestro Thachuk has conducted world and American premieres of works by John Estacio, Ronald Royer, Doug Opel, Arcangel Castillo Olivari, Robert Baker and was the co-founder and conductor of Canada’s Cygnus Ensemble.
He has also conducted on tour with the Australian rock group Air Supply, conducted the soundtrack for the Canadian feature film The Eternal Husband and conducted multiple main stage productions for the award-winning opera programme at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).
Born in Toronto, Maestro Thachuk began his music studies at the age of five, studying classical guitar, French horn, and piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music. He earned a Bachelor of Music Performance in guitar from the University of Toronto, and received his Masters degree and began doctoral studies in conducting at CCM.
Maestro Thachuk made his debut as Music Director Designate & Principal Conductor at the opening of the 2010-11 Season in October 2010 at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre of Brock University, where the Niagara Symphony is proud to be the Orchestra in Residence.
In 2011, Maestro Thachuk will make his permanent home in St Catharines. He looks foward to leading the orchestra in the 2011-2012 Season and beyond, at the new downtown Performing Arts Centre.
