BIOGRAPHIES OF JUDGES SYMPHONETTE COMPETITION LANDON SCHOOL MARCH 17, 5 P.M.

Described as an “energetic” conductor who leads with “clear authority and enthusiasm” by the New York Times after his Carnegie Hall debut, Indian American conductor Ankush Kumar Bahl is currently an Assistant Conductor with the Orchestre National de France and has recently began his post as the Assistant Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C). Mr Bahl is the proud recipient both the 2011 Sir Georg Solti Career Assistance Award and the 2009 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Scholarship. The later, prestigious award enabled him to spend time in Leipzig, Germany working privately with Maestros Kurt Masur, Riccardo Chailly, and the Gewandhaus Orchestra as the city of Leipzig celebrated the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth. Recent seasons have included his debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (replacing Kurt Masur), the National Opera Orchestra of Nancy, Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony. Formerly the Music Director of the New Jersey Youth Symphony, Mr. Bahl has also worked as an Assistant Conductor with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Youth Symphony. In addition to regularly assisting Maestro Masur at the Orchestre National de France, Bahl has also been fortunate to do so at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bahl received a double degree in music and rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and completed his master’s degree in orchestral conducting at the Manhattan School of Music with teachers Zdenek Macal, George Manahan and David Gilbert. Mr. Bahl’s primary conducting teachers have also included Kurt Masur, Christoph Eschenbach, Kenneth Kiesler, Alasdair Neale, and David Milnes. Bahl has participated in master classes or workshops with Sir Colin Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, David Zinman, David Robertson, James Conlon, Sergiu Comissiona, Gunther Schuller, Gustav Meier, Larry Rachleff, Michael Stern, and Jorma Panula. Mr. Bahl currently spends his summers in Vermont as a frequent guest conductor of the Kinhaven Music School in addition to other summer festivals in the US and abroad. For inquiries and additional information about Mr. Bahl, please visit www.boleroartists.com/akb. ______Now in his fourth season as Principal Conductor of the Washington Sinfonietta following a season as its Principal Guest Conductor, acclaimed by the Washington Post as “…one of Washington's premier conductors of both old and new music…”, Joel Lazar was Music Director of the JCC Symphony Orchestra from 1988 through 2008 and continues with that orchestra in its new identity as the Symphony of the Potomac. He conducted the Theater Chamber Players in engagements at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress and on tour from 1986 to 2003, and has appeared as guest conductor with many orchestras and contemporary music ensembles in the Washington area. During the 1990s, he was Music Director of Alexandria-based Opera Americana, and has been Principal Conductor for the In Series’ opera productions since 1991. A cover conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2001, Joel Lazar shared the stage with Music Director Leonard Slatkin in critically praised and enthusiastically received performances of Ives’ Fourth Symphony in April 2001. A native New Yorker, Joel Lazar received undergraduate and graduate degrees in music from Harvard University, where he studied with Pierre Boulez, Walter Piston and Randall Thompson. In conductors' courses at Aspen and Tanglewood he worked with Izler Solomon, Walter Susskind, Richard Burgin and Erich Leinsdorf, and at the Shenandoah Festival with Richard Lert. From 1961 until 1971 he taught and conducted at Harvard, New York University and the University of Virginia. In 1969 Joel Lazar was elected to honorary membership in the Bruckner Society of America. Through colleagues in the Society he met the legendary Jascha Horenstein, master interpreter of Mahler and Bruckner and, in 1971, received a fellowship enabling him to spend two years overseas as Horenstein's personal assistant, the only young conductor ever to serve in this capacity. After Horenstein's death in 1973, he acted as his mentor's artistic executor, inheriting his extensive music library and completing his recording of Carl Nielsen's opera, Saul and David, with an international cast including Boris Christoff. ______

Peter Wilson is an engaging and multifaceted American violinist and conductor whose musicianship has been noted as “first-class” by The Washington Post. He currently serves as Music Director of the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra and Concertmaster of the American Festival Pops Orchestra of Washington, DC. In addition, he is Music Director of TYOF (The Youth Orchestras of Fairfax) and conductor of its flagship ensemble, the United Youth Symphony Orchestra. He also has conducted such renowned institutions as the National Symphony Orchestra and the National Gallery Orchestra. Highly respected throughout the National Capital Region, he has performed as a violinist of The White House for over two decades as a member of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, where he serves as String Section Commander. A musician in great demand for his high energy, versatility, and commitment to quality, he is also an active guest conductor, soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and performance clinician throughout the United States. He holds music degrees from Northwestern University and The Catholic University of America where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts. Dr. Wilson began his professional career as Concertmaster of the Walt Disney World Orchestra. He has appeared as soloist with Rosemary Clooney, Renée Fleming, Bernadette Peters, and composer/conductor John Williams. For 12 years he served as a lecturer at Catholic University where he was Resident Conductor while teaching courses in conducting and string techniques. In addition, he is cofounder and violinist of the acclaimed string duo "Bridging the Gap" (with bassist Aaron Clay), which has been hailed for “superior arrangements and uncommon musicianship” by The Washington Post. In 2008, Dr. Wilson was one of only nine conductors selected to work with Leonard Slatkin in the acclaimed National Conducting Institute. In 2009, he performed with Stevie Wonder at the Library of Congress in the World Premiere of Mr. Wonder’s “Sketches of a Life." Dr. Wilson was the first musician ever to receive the Governor’s Award for Exceptional Achievement in the Arts in his native West Virginia and he has appeared in international magazines to include The Strad, which stated, “[Wilson] made music that had the stamp of quality.”