SOLOISTS AND CONDUCTORS
BREVARD MUSIC CENTER | OVERTURE
University Professor Chair at Mercer University in his native city of Macon, Georgia, where he is also the founder of the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings.
ROBERT MOODY, conductor Robert Moody has been Music Director of the Winston-Salem Symphony since 2005, Artistic Director of Arizona Musicfest since 2007, Music Director of the Portland Symphony Orchestra since 2008, and will become Principal Conductor of the Memphis Symphony beginning in the 2016-17 season. Mr. Moody’s 2015-2016 season included debuts with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and Columbus Symphony, as well as return engagements with the Memphis and Pacific Symphonies, and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Other recent guest conducting appearances include the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, in addition to the symphonies of Toronto, Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, Seattle, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Buffalo, Louisville, and, in Europe, the Slovenian Philharmonic. Summer festival appearances include Santa Fe Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, Brevard Music Center, Eastern Music Festival, PortOpera, and the Oregon Bach Festival. Equally at home in the opera pit, Moody began his career as apprentice conductor for the Landestheater Opera in Linz, Austria. He has gone on to conduct at the opera companies of Santa Fe, Rochester, Hilton Head, and the Brevard Music Center. He also assisted on a production of Verdi’s Otello at the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by Valery Gergiev, and debuted with the Washington National Opera and North Carolina Opera in 2014. Maestro Moody has accompanied many of the world’s greatest performing artists, including Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Renee Fleming, Denyce Graves, Andre Watts, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Midori, Time for Three and Chris Thile. His work can be heard on several commercially released compact disc recordings. He collaborated with the Canadian Brass for their “Bach” and “Legends” CDs; he is also the conductor for the CD “4th World,” highlighting the music of Native American recording artist R. Carlos Nakai (available on the Canyon Record label); and in 2010, the Winston-Salem Symphony released their performance (live from 2009) of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. A DVD of Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with Arizona Musicfest was released in 2012.
JAYCE OGREN, conductor With mounting success in both symphonic and operatic repertoire, Jayce Ogren is building a reputation as one of the finest young conductors to emerge from the United States in recent seasons. He began the 2015/2016 season leading Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the Music Academy of the West before heading to Paris to conduct the Ensemble Intercontemporain in a program that included music of Stockhausen, Jodlowski, Nono, and Andrew Norman. He lead subscription weeks with the Colorado, Edmonton and Victoria
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Symphony orchestras, and Philadelphia’s Orchestra 2001; Bernstein’s West Side Story with film for the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Dallas Symphony; and the world premiere of Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Highlights of recent seasons included acclaimed performances of the Strauss Burleske with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Emanuel Ax; Basil Twist’s Rite of Spring with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival; the New York Philharmonic in their CONTACT! Series of contemporary music; and the recording Rufus Wainright’s opera Prima Donna with the BBC Symphony for release on Deutsche Grammophon. He has also led new productions of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto with the New York City Opera, where he was Music Director, as well as the American premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s opera Prima Donna, Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Bernstein’s A Quiet Place, for which he won extensive critical acclaim. He also made his Canadian Opera debut in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale & Other Short Fables. A native of Washington State, Ogren received his bachelor’s degree in composition from St. Olaf College, his master’s degree in conducting from the New England Conservatory, and a postgraduate diploma in orchestral conducting at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm as a Fulbright scholar. He was appointed by Franz Welser-Möst as Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Youth Orchestra, and has led the Cleveland Orchestra in regular season subscription concerts and at The Blossom Festival. Ogren makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.
EDUARDO RIOS, violin Senior Division First Place Laureate of the 2015 Annual Sphinx Competition presented by the DTE Energy Foundation, violinist Eduardo Rios performs as part of the Sphinx Soloist Program sponsored by the GM Foundation. Born and raised in Lima, Peru, Mr. Rios enjoys performing as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra concertmaster. Since his solo debut at age fourteen with the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru, Mr. Rios has traveled around the globe performing in a variety of settings. Recent highlights include his Houston Symphony debut and Royce Hall debut performing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, as well as a performance of Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No. 3 with the Colburn Orchestra, Carlos Kalmar conducting. Upcoming performances include his Nashville Symphony debut performing the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No. 5. Mr. Rios is currently a Bachelor of Music candidate at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, where he studies with Robert Lipsett. He is concertmaster of the Young Artists Symphony Orchestra and co-concertmaster of the Colburn Orchestra. Previously, he held the position of concertmaster for the American Youth Symphony from 2013–2015.