Maestro Leif Bjaland
Maestro Leif Bjaland guides the artistic direction of the Sarasota Orchestra. His engaging conducting style and artistic vision continue to herald an era of musical excellence. Leif is also the conductor of the Waterbury (Connecticut) Symphony.
In July 2005, he made his debut at the Music in the Mountains Festival in Durango, Colorado. In June 2003, he made his inaugural appearance at the internationally renowned Ravinia Festival in an all-Bernstein Concert with the Chicago Symphony. Also in 2003, he conducted the San Francisco Symphony in an all-Russian concert featuring Pictures at an Exhibition. This was Mr. Bjaland's long-awaited return to the San Francisco Symphony since departing in 1989 as assistant conductor and music director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. He has since returned to conduct a concert in the orchestra's "Summer in the City" series.
As a champion of unjustly neglected works and composers, Mr. Bjaland has conducted a substantial number of world and local premieres. With the Sarasota Orchestra, he conducted the first orchestral performance of the complete orchestral version of Ravel's masterpiece for solo piano, Miroirs, with orchestrations by Ravel, Grainger, and Stuckey. He also led the world premiere of David Carlson's Quantumsymphony. With the New World Symphony, he conducted the first performance in Florida of Bruckner's second symphony as well as the U.S. premiere of the Frank Martin Symphony 1937. With his orchestra in Connecticut, Mr. Bjaland led the long- delayed first performance of George Chadwick's opera "The Padrone" more than 80 years after its composition. Other works performed there recently have been Deborah Teason's Concerto for Steel Band and the world premiere performance of Charles Griffes' Symphony 1919.
Mr. Bjaland's other recent guest conducting appearances have included the Nashville Symphony, the New Zealand Symphony, the World Youth Symphony at the National Music Camp at Interlochen, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Orchestra, as well as the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Symphony and the Marin (California) Symphony. In previous seasons he led many of the country's finest orchestras, including the National Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Virginia Symphony and the Utah Symphony, where the Salt Lake Tribune critic wrote, "This singularly has to be the best interpretation of Prokofiev's fifth symphony ever."
Hailed by Sir Georg Solti as "a most musical young conductor with great future potential," Mr. Bjaland was selected by Leonard Bernstein in 1988 to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at several Orchestra Hall concerts as part of the American Conductors Program. In the summer of 1990, he was invited by Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas to participate in the premiere season of the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. From 1989-1993, he served as resident conductor and artistic coordinator of the New World Symphony in Miami.
Leif Bjaland began his musical career as a Professor of Music at Yale University, where he served as music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, leading that ensemble on a very successful tour of Europe in 1985. A Michigan native, Maestro Bjaland received his Master's Degree in Music from the University of Michigan, where he was a student of Gustav Meier and Elizabeth A. H. Green.
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