Lake Placid Sinfonietta announces conductors for the 2008 summer season

LAKE PLACID Maestro David Gilbert, who served as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta from 1985 to 1991, and Mark Mandarano, who has held important staff and guest conducting positions with several orchestras, will each conduct in the 2008 summer season. Gilbert will return as artistic director with responsibility for the programming for the full summer season as well as serve as the conductor for the last three weeks of the season. Mandarano will conduct the Sinfonietta for the first three weeks starting with the traditional Fourth of July Concert. We are very fortunate, explained Dr. Paul Reiss, President of the Sinfonietta, to have David Gilbert return as Artistic Director. He provides important continuity with the fine traditions of the Sinfonietta, knows the orchestra and the area well, and was popular with both audiences and musicians during his earlier time with us. We are also looking forward to experiencing the conducting of Mark Mandarano who has a reputation for communicating well among musicians and with audiences. Currently, the orchestra is in the midst of a two-year search for a permanent Artistic Director and Conductor. Mandarano was selected as one of the outstanding applicants among the more than 120 who have applied for the long-term position. Others will also be selected to audition for that position during the 2009 summer season, after which the selection of the Artistic Director and Conductor for 2010 and beyond will be made. Gilbert has been music director of the Greenwich (CT) Symphony since 1975. Born in Pennsylvania to a family of musicians, he received degrees from the Eastman School of Music and won first prize in the 1970 Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition. Among his many positions, Gilbert has served as an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, as principal conductor of the American Ballet Theatre, and as principal guest conductor of the Beijing Philharmonic, the first American musician to hold a position of national prominence in China. Gilbert is a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music where he has conducted several important New York premiers. As a composer, Gilberts recent compositions include Concerto for Trombone, Brass and Orchestra, and Phoenix Madrigal for flute and strings. In 2007, Mandarano inaugurated his position as principal guest conductor of The Moscow Chamber Orchestra with a Carnegie Hall gala that featured opera stars from the Kirov and Bolshoi theaters. He has performed with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and the Long Beach Symphony. Mandarano has worked with Leonard Slatkin, conducting the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and has held staff conducting positions with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Festival. In 1998, Mark Mandarano conducted the world premiere performances of the work that won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1999: Melinda Wagners Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion. The Lake Placid Sinfonietta, the Adirondack regions only resident professional orchestra, was formed in 1917 as a privately funded summer concert series by eleven members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since then, the Sinfonietta has grown to an ensemble of 20 musicians, drawn from orchestras and universities around the country, which performs a wide repertoire in a six-week summer season.

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Lake Placid Sinfonietta announces conductors for the 2008 summer season

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