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Geoffrey Larson serves as Music Director of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra and Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor of Berkshire Opera Festival. He was awarded Second Prize in the 2021 International Orchestral Conducting Competition “UAL” in Almería, Spain. Described as a conductor “with passion and precision” by Classical Voice North America, he has conducted orchestras such as the Spokane Symphony, South Bend Symphony, Bainbridge Symphony, Northwest Mahler Festival, National Radio and Television Orchestra of Albania, and Pleven Philharmonic (Bulgaria).
Passionate about the music of our time, Geoffrey has collaborated with composers such as Gabriel Prokofiev, Anna Clyne, Randall Woolf, and Reza Vali. He has recorded with the Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble for the Naxos label. Active in the world of contemporary opera, he conducted the workshop premiere of The Reef, a new opera by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis, at New York City’s Kaufman Music Center in 2024. In 2022, he collaborated with members of the Seattle Symphony and soprano Laquita Mitchell to present Tom Cipullo’s opera Josephine in an acclaimed staging by Music of Remembrance. In other opera performances, he has worked with artists such as Sherrill Milnes, Tamara Wilson, Sebastian Catana, Caroline Worra, and Daniel Belcher.
Geoffrey is currently completing a doctoral thesis at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the mentorship of Arthur Fagen and Thomas Wilkins, where he served as Assistant Conductor of IU Opera and conducted performances of IU Ballet Theatre. He previously studied with the late Robert Page at Carnegie Mellon University and Michael Jinbo at the Pierre Monteux School, and he has benefited from additional studies with David Neely, Walter Huff, Nicolás Pasquet, James Ross, George Hurst, Carl St. Clair, Peter Erös, Ronald Zollman, and Michael Christie.
Bruce J. G. Kotowich, DMA, is the Acting Director of SoCA (School of Creative Arts) and an Associate Professor of Music- Director of Choral Activities at the University of Windsor where he directs the University of Windsor Chamber Choir and USingers and teaches courses in Choral Techniques. In the Windsor Essex community, Dr. Kotowich is the Chorus Master for the Windsor Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and the Artistic Director of the Windsor Classic Chorale.
Dr. Kotowich completed his Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting and Masters of Music in Conducting at the University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music. He received his Associateship of Music in Vocal Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Manitoba. He is a recipient of numerous awards and honors including awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, University of Cincinnati, the Archdiocese of St. Boniface Heritage Award, and the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts for the City of Windsor.
His choirs have performed throughout North America, Europe, and China. Dr. Kotowich has conducted the Manitoba Provincial Senior High Honor Choir, Manitoba Provincial Jazz Choir, the South Dakota North Region All-State Choir, the Illinois Music Educators’ Association District Honor Choir and numerous other festival and conference choirs. He conducted Ola Gjielo’s Sunrise Mass at Carnegie Hall, New York, with choristers from the Windsor Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Windsor Classic Chorale, University of Windsor, and choirs from Windsor Essex and London, ON., and will be returning to conduct Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living in May 2024.
Dr. Kotowich is a sought after clinician. He has presented at the Symposium for Singing and Song, Podium-Choral Canada, Iowa Choral Directors’ Association Summer Conference, the National Convention of the American Choral Directors’ Association, the NDSU Symposium, the North-Central Conference for ACDA, 2014 Choral Music from the Heartland of Europe to the Heartland of America: Czech Music for North American Audiences, and presented at the World Choral EXPO in Lisbon, Portugal in September 2022.
Dr. Kotowich is published in the Choral Research Memorandum Series through Chorus America and edits a choral publication series with Alliance Music Publications. In addition to his responsibilities at the University of Windsor, he is the former Editor-In-Chief of the Anacrusis.
Conductor Laureate, John Morris Russell continues to devote himself to redefining the North American orchestral experience. Music Director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra between 2001-2012, Maestro Russell is currently his eleventh year as conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, one of the world’s most iconic pops orchestras. Music Director of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina since 2012, Mr. Russell leads the prestigious Hilton Head International Piano Competition; he also serves as Principal Pops Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Russell has worked with many of North America’s most distinguished orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Pops, National Symphony Orchestra as well as the orchestras of Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. He regularly leads the National Orchestral Institute and Festival in College Park, Maryland. Mr. Russell’s recent collaborations around the world include Aretha Franklin, Emanuel Ax, Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Garrick Ohlsson, Rhiannon Giddens, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jon Kimura Parker, Michael McDonald, Cynthia Erivo, Sutton Foster, George Takei, Steve Martin, Brian Wilson, and Leslie Odom, Jr.
As Music Director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, he conducted over forty world premieres many of which were presented on seventeen national broadcasts for CBC Radio 2, and the orchestra’s first nationally televised production for the CBC series “Opening Night”. His recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra earned Mr. Russell and the WSO its first Juno nomination for “Best Children’s Album” in 2008. Maestro Russell has contributed six albums to the recorded legacy of The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, including recent releases Voyage (2019) and American Originals 1918 (2018) for which he was awarded a GRAMMY Nomination for “Best Classical Compendium”. His world premiere recording of Blind Injustice, with Cincinnati Opera was released in February of 2021.
