ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL

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Festival Leadership

Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher is president and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School and a respected composer. He comes to Aspen from the positions of head of the School of Music and professor of music at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and before that from leadership and faculty positions including provost and senior vice president at the New England Conservatory. He holds doctoral and masters degrees from The Juilliard School and a bachelors degree from Princeton University, and has studied with distinguished composers such as Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, and Paul Lansky. He has won numerous composing awards and commissions, including recent commissions for the Pittsburgh Symphony and the National Gallery of Art. He lectures nationally and internationally on music and music administration, and has written Op/Ed pieces for newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Baltimore Sun. In addition, he serves on numerous boards such as those for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Pittsburgh Opera, and has sat on some of the field's most prestigious committees such as The Gilmore Prize Artistic Board and jury, and the Avery Fisher Prize.

David Zinman

David Zinman became Music Director of the Aspen Music Festival and School in 1998; in 2000 he founded the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, of which he is program director. In 1998 he completed thirteen years as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He is presently in his eleventh season as music director of the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich.

Mr. Zinman's tenures, in Baltimore and now in Zurich, have been distinguished by his programming of an extraordinary broad repertoire, his strong commitment to the performance of contemporary music, and his introduction of historically informed performance practice. Since his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1967, Mr. Zinman has conducted many of the world's leading orchestras, both as a guest conductor and as music director. He has toured widely with the Baltimore and Tonhalle orchestras in Europe, North America, and the Far East.

In 2006-07, Mr. Zinman appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, London and BBC Symphony Orchestras, WDR Cologne, Boston Symphony, multiple subscriptions with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra including a tour of Florida and a Verdi Requiem for the season closing concerts, San Francisco Symphony, and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris.

Mr. Zinman's extensive discography of more than 130 recordings has earned numerous international honors, including five Grammy awards, two Grand Prix du Disque, two Edison Prizes, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and a Gramophone Award. He and Tonhalle Orchestra have recorded extensively for the Arte Nova label, releasing acclaimed CDs of the works of Beethoven, Richard Strauss, and Schumann. As part of the Tonhalle's ongoing Beethoven recording cycle, a two-CD set of Beethoven Overtures and the Piano Concertos with Yefim Bronfman have been released. The Beethoven Triple Concerto and Violin Concerto are now available. Mr. Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra have embarked on a recording cycle of the Mahler Symphonies. Recordings of the Mahler Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 are now available and the release of Symphony No. 3 is pending. Additional recording of Christmas music by Lutosławski, Rodrigo and Christopher Rouse with the BBC Symphony is pending release.