Diane adds an orchestra
mainThe Garden State Philharmonic has named Diane Wittry as music director for the next season.
Diane is also music director of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra in Allentown, PA.
Prior to that, she was the Artistic Director of the Ridgewood Symphony (Ridgewood, NJ); Music Director and Conductor of the Norwalk Symphony (Norwalk, CT); Music Director and Conductor of The Symphony of Southeast Texas (Beaumont, TX) where her artistic leadership garnered national attention, and Artistic Director of the International Cultural Exchange Program with the Sarajevo Philharmonic, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Most of these sound like community symphonies (i.e. part time and maybe unpaid performers) I am glad that she is on the way up
Actually, both my orchestras are completely professional orchestras. The Allentown Symphony, (PA) is a budget of 3.5 million, and performs 28 concerts a year and musicians come from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC. The Garden State Philharmonic is all New York professional musicians and rehearses in New York, but performs throughout the New Jersey shore. The organization also supports an adult Chorus, a Youth Chorus, and Youth Orchestra.
Maestra: what is the status of the Allentown executive director search?
We are still in the middle of our search for a new Executive Director for the Allentown Symphony and it is going well.
Previous music directors in Allentown include Donald Vorhees, of Bell Telephone Hour fame, and William Smith, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s long-serving assistant conductor under Ormandy and Muti. The Allentown Symphony has attracted some world-class soloists.