Christopher Seaman
Artistic Advisor
Christopher Seaman, recognized worldwide as one of today’s leading conductors, was recently announced as the new Artistic Advisor of the San Antonio Symphony as the Symphony continues its search for a full-time Music Director.
Christopher Seaman is scheduled to guest conduct three concerts in the 2008-2009 season, and will serve as a catalyst to help the Symphony continue its mission of delivering entertainment, education and inspiration to the San Antonio and South Texas community.
The selection of Christopher Seaman as Artistic Advisor was the result of musicians, management and members of the board working together to find consensus on who could best help sustain the artistic growth of the organization as it continues its search for a permanent music director. As Artistic Advisor to the San Antonio Symphony through at least the 2009-2010 season, Maestro Seaman will oversee classical season programming, participate in musician auditions and provide advice and guidance on all artistic matters.
Christopher Seaman is in his tenth season as Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic, where his contract was recently extended until 2011. He has been credited for broadening the orchestra's audience base and, in particular, for his creation of the lecture series "Symphony 101," which recently won an ASCAP award. Mr. Seaman previously served a ten-year tenure as music director of the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, and prior to that as conductor-in-residence of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (1987-1998). Sought-after as a guest conductor throughout the world, Mr. Seaman has appeared with orchestras in North America, Israel, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in his native Great Britain, where he has served as Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony and the Northern Sinfonia.
As a guest conductor in North America, Mr. Seaman has had recent engagements with the symphony orchestras of Seattle, Utah, Houston, and San Francisco. He has previously conducted the orchestras of Atlanta, Cincinnati, Colorado, Columbus, Detroit, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, and Toronto, among others.
Abroad, Mr. Seaman appears regularly with such orchestras as the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, the Bergen Philharmonic and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. He has also enjoyed, in recent seasons, return visits to Australia where he has conducted the Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestras. In the United Kingdom, Mr. Seaman has worked with all of the London orchestras, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra and the various BBC orchestras.
His recordings include performances with the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Britain. In 1990 he collaborated with Anne Akiko Meyers and the Royal Philharmonic for a recording of the Barber Violin Concerto and the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1. Recently, he has released a recording of works by Tchaikovsky with pianist Olga Kern, as well as a recording of works by Rachmaninoff with Jon Nakamatsu, both for the Harmonia Mundi label. Both of these recordings were performed with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and received considerable critical acclaim.
As part of his commitment to training young musicians, he holds the post of Chief Guest Conductor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Mr. Seaman makes a point of encouraging young talent and in the 2002-03 season, in addition to working with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, he spent a ten-day teaching residency at the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival and School. As a result of the success of his master classes with Symphony Australia, he was invited to take the post of Conducting Course Director, which was previously held by Jorma Panula. Christopher Seaman has also had a long association with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
After studying at King's College, Cambridge, Mr. Seaman began his career as a member of the London Philharmonic. Within four years, he had moved in front of the podium as assistant conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony in Glasgow. He has since appeared exclusively as a conductor.
Ken-David Masur
Resident Conductor
Ken-David Masur first attracted international attention in 2007 when he won the audition of the San Antonio Symphony and became its Resident Conductor beginning in the 2007-2008 season. During the San Antonio Symphony's 08-09 season, Masur will conduct the complete Pops, Young People's Concerts, Interactive Family Concerts and neighborhood series concerts, as well as concerts for New Year's Eve, the Nutcracker with the San Antonio Ballet, and all other special events such as Veterans Day and the Tobin Endowment Memorial Day Concert, which is annually broadcast live on public television.
Ken Masur, San Antonio Symphony’s Resident Conductor, is a “brilliant and commanding” [from the Leipziger Volkszeitung] conductor with “unmistakable charisma” [from the Bild]. This high praise has followed Ken Masur since his conducting debut in 1998. He co-founded the Columbia University Bach Society Orchestra and Choir in 1999 and as its first Music Director, regularly led performances of cantatas, oratorios, symphonies, operas, chamber music and choral works from the 17th to the 20th century, appearing at such venues as New York City’s Miller Theatre, Riverside Church, The 92nd Street Y, the German Consulate and the University Club. Under Masur’s leadership, the Bach Society released its debut CD in 2002, which included works by J.S. Bach as well as symphonies by Bach’s two oldest sons, W.F. and C.P.E. Bach. The Bach Society’s 2001 concert tour of Germany was met with critical acclaim, prompting one critic from the Leipziger Volkszeitung to write about its performance and staging of Handel’s opera Acis and Galatea, “The marvellous score could simply not have been any better realized.” Masur was also music director of the Columbia Orchestra for Asian Music and in 2002 conducted the Manhattan School of Music Laureate orchestra made up of principal players of the New York Philharmonic and their students.
During the 2004-2005 season, Masur served as Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France, covering such large-scale works as Honnegger’s Jeanne d’Arc and Grieg’s Peer Gynt. When he prepared J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion in 2005 with the Chœur de Radio France and the children’s choir, La Maîtrise de Radio France, subsequent reviews of that concert repeatedly praised the choirs’ performance: “Of the entire production, it was the choruses who shined and did justice to Bach’s masterwork, . . . [delivering] a penetrating reading of [The Passion’s] heavenly polyphony and powerful balancing of voices” [ResMusica]. Masur has since then been a frequent guest conductor of the Chœur de Radio France, with whom he led its first-time collaboration with the orchestra of the Paris Conservatory in the 2005-2006 season opening concert. In 2006-2007, Masur gave a conducting master class for the choral conductors of the 4800-member Hong Kong Children’s Choir, collaborated with Sir Colin Davis in Orchestre National de France’s production of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and led the Youth Orchestra of Opole, Poland as part of the 2007 annual EuroSilesia Festival. Concerts in prior season also have included Masur’s debut with the Orchestre National de Toulouse, the Rio de Janeiro Symphony, as well as with the Fort Bend Symphony in Texas.
As the San Antonio Symphony’s Resident Conductor for the 2009-2010 season, Masur will conduct twenty-four performances in the San Antonio Symphony’s Young People’s Concert Series, four performances in the Family Classics series, the 70th Anniversary Celebration Concert and assorted other Pops, Educational and Community concerts.
Born in Leipzig, Germany, Ken Masur began his comprehensive musical training at age 6 with the piano and at age 9 as boy-soprano in the legendary Gewandhaus Children’s Choir. As an undergraduate at Columbia University, Masur studied orchestration with French composer Tristan Murail, composition with Joseph Dubiel and conducting with Jeffrey Milarsky. He served as Principal Trumpet of the Columbia University Orchestra and of the National Youth Guild Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. Masur has also participated in master classes with conductors Jorma Panula (St.Petersburg), Zdenek Macal (New Jersey Philharmonic), George Manahan (New York City Opera) at the Manhattan School of Music, and Kurt Masur in São Paolo Symphony Orchestra’s first two international conducting master classes in 2001-2003. Masur is also an accomplished concert and Lied singer. After obtaining his Bachelor of Arts in music from Columbia in 2002, he studied voice for five years as a master student of renowned bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin. Masur has given numerous Lied recitals in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Berlin, Detmold, and at the Festival “les muséiques” Basel, and has been featured both as conductor and singer on broadcasts for such stations as WKCR New York, RTHK4 Hong Kong and Radio France.
Ken-David Masur currently makes his home in San Antonio with his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur, and their daughter, Magdalena.
Christopher Wilkins
Music Director Emeritus
As a guest conductor, Christopher Wilkins has appeared with many of the leading orchestras of the United States, including those of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. He also appears frequently overseas, with regular concerts in recent seasons in New Zealand, and with many of the principal orchestras of Spain.
In September on 2005, he was appointed Music Director Designate of the Orlando Philharmonic, and will become their Music Director in the fall of 2006. For ten seasons he was Music Director of the San Antonio Symphony, and since 2001 has served that orchestra as Music Director Emeritus. He served as Music Director of the Colorado Springs Symphony from 1989-1996, and is currently Artistic Advisor to the Opera Theatre of the Rockies in Colorado Springs. Recently he was resident conductor of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, helping in the formation of that orchestra in its inaugural season, and subsequently leading it on tours throughout the Americas.
During his tenure in San Antonio, the orchestra made extraordinary gains artistically, increased its profile and reputation within the community, and gained national acclaim for several new programs. Together they received six programming awards from ASCAP, including the first-ever Morton Gould Award for creative programming.
In 1992 Mr. Wilkins was winner of the Seaver/NEA Award, designed to identify exceptionally talented American conductors in the early stages of major careers. He served as the associate conductor of the Utah Symphony from 1986-89, assisting his former teacher Joseph Silverstein, and was assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1983-86, as assistant to Music Director Christoph von Dohnányi. Previously, he was conducting assistant with the Oregon Symphony under Music Director James DePreist, and a conducting fellow at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.
Born in Boston, Mr. Wilkins earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1978. As an oboist, he performed with many ensembles in the Boston area, including the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra at Tanglewood, and the Boston Philharmonic under Benjamin Zander. He studied at Yale University with Otto-Werner Mueller, receiving his master of music degree in 1981. In 1979-80, he attended the Hochschule der Künste in West Berlin, as a recipient of the John Knowles Paine traveling fellowship, awarded by the Harvard music department.
Dr. John Silantien
Conductor - San Antonio Symphony Mastersingers
Dr. John Silantien has taught and conducted choirs on the secondary and collegiate levels in Texas, the Washington, D. C., area, and on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Illinois. His awards include a Rockefeller grant for choral conducting at Aspen, Colorado, and a Fulbright award for research in London, England. He presently serves as Director of Choral Activities at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Director of the San Antonio Symphony Mastersingers, and Choir Director at University Presbyterian Church. Between 1992 and 1998, he served as Editor of the Choral Journal, the official publication of the American Choral Directors Association, with a circulation of more than 20,000. He serves frequently as adjudicator, clin¬ician, and guest conductor. He is listed in the International Who’s Who in Music, Who’s Who among America’s Teachers, the 2006 edition of Who’s Who in America, and the 2007 edition of Who’s Who in the World. In 2009, he received UTSA’s President’s award for excellence in research and creative activity.
Choirs under his direction have been invited to perform before the Music Educators National Conference, the American Choral Directors Association, the Texas Choral Directors Association, and the Texas Music Educators Association. They have sung in New York City’s Lincoln Center and London’s Royal Festival Hall. In June 1997 the UTSA Madrigal Singers toured Brazil performing at major venues in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. His UTSA Concert Choir toured to Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague during the spring of 2006 as an invited participant in the celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday. His orchestral con¬ducting credits include performances with the San Antonio Symphony, the San Antonio Pops, and New York’s West Side Chamber Orchestra, as well as CD recordings of three Mozart piano concertos with the Moscow State Radio Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in May 1994 conducting Mozart’s Requiem. In May 2008, he returned to Carnegie Hall to conduct the San Antonio Symphony Mastersingers in a performance of Mozart’s Vespers.
