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Music Director & Orchestra

Elizabeth Schulze, Music Director

Music Director Elizabeth Schulze

With passion, verve and illuminating musicianship, Elizabeth Schulze has been conducting orchestras and opera companies, advocating for music education, and electrifying audiences in the States and abroad for more than two and a half decades.

Recipient of the 2013 Sorel Medallion in Conducting for her adventurous programming, Schulze is in her 23rd season as the Music Director and Conductor of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra and is the newly appointed Music Director and Conductor of the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra in Alaska.

Schulze made her European debut leading the Mainz Chamber Orchestra in the Atlantisches Festival in Kaiserslautern, Germany. She appeared in Paris as the assistant guest conductor for the Paris Opera and has also appeared in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Vienna with the National Symphony during its 1997 European tour. Her most recent international work includes conducting in Hong Kong, Jerusalem and Taipei.

Schulze’s recent guest conducting in the States includes appearances with the Buffalo Philharmonic and the New Jersey, Detroit, San Francisco and Chautauqua Symphonies. Her positions with U.S. orchestras include an appointment as Associate Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, Music Director and Conductor of the Flagstaff, Waterloo/Cedar Falls, and Kenosha Symphony Orchestras, Principal Guest Conductor of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Cover Conductor and Conducting Assistant for the New York Philharmonic, and Assistant Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic, an appointment sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Since the beginning of her career, Schulze has been a spirited advocate for music education. Her far-ranging work included a long association with the National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute (SMI). For more than 15 years Schulze conducted, taught and mentored dozens of young musicians at SMI at the Kennedy Center.  She has also conducted the American Composer’s Orchestra in LinkUp educational and family concerts in Carnegie Hall and throughout New York City. And for six years, Schulze joined her mentor Leonard Slatkin, teaching at the NSO’s National Conducting Institute.

Her music education and mentoring work spans the Elementary School to the University. She was an artist-in-residence at Northwestern University and has guest conducted the orchestras of The University of Maryland, the Manhattan School of Music and Catholic University of America. She has also guest lectured at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Schulze’s own education includes training in Europe and in the States. She graduated cum laude from Bryn Mawr College and was an honors student at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She holds graduate degrees in orchestral and choral conducting from SUNY at Stony Brook.  She was the first doctoral fellow in orchestral conducting at Northwestern University and was selected as a conducting fellow at L’École d’Arts Americaines in France.  She was the recipient of the first Aspen Music School Conducting Award. At Aspen, she worked with Murry Sidlin, Lawrence Foster and Sergiu Commissiona. As a Tanglewood fellow, she worked with Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier and Leonard Bernstein.

Schulze is represented by John Such Artists Management, Ltd.

2022-2023 Orchestra

First Violins

Robert Martin - Concertmaster, MSO Guild Chair
Joanna Natalia Owen - Associate Concertmaster
Lysiane Gravel-Lacombe - Acting Assistant Concertmaster
Yen-Jung Chen - Thomas Marks Chair
H. Lee Brewster
Mauricio D. Couto
Sarah D'Angelo +
Charles Gleason +
Megan Gray
Heather Haughn *
Catherine Nelson
Brent Price +
Petr Skopek

Second Violins

Marissa Murphy –Principal, J. Emmet Burke Chair
Ariadna Buonviri –Associate Principal
Julianna Chitwood * –Assistant Principal
Karin Kelleher *
Mary Katherine "Kat" Whitesides
Ruth Erbe
Teresa L. Gordon
Melanie Kuperstein
Swiatoslaw Kuznik
Christian Simmelink +
Patricia Wnek *

Violas

Phyllis Freeman –Principal, Alan J. Noia Chair
Magaly Rojas Seay – Associate Principal
Daphne Benichou – Assistant Principal
Sungah Min
Rachel Holaday
Stephanie Knutsen
Sean Lyons
Alice Tung

Cellos

Todd Thiel * – Principal, J. Ramsay Farah Chair
Katlyn DeGraw – Acting Principal
Jessica Albrecht – Assistant Principal
Aneta Otreba
Mauricio Betanzo *
Youbin Jun
Alyssa Moquin
Jessica Siegel Weaver

Basses

Adriane Benvenuti Irving – Principal, Stuart Knussen Chair
Shawn Alger Associate Principal
Alec Hiller
Kimberly Parillo
Brandon Smith

Flutes

Nicolette Driehuys Oppelt – Acting Principal, Marjorie M. Hobbs Chair
Elena Yakovleva

Piccolo

Elena Yakovleva

Oboes

Fatma Daglar – Principal, Joel L. Rosenthal Chair
Amanda Dusold
Rick Basehore

English Horn

Rick Basehore

Clarinets

Beverly Butts - Principal, John M. Waltersdorf Chair
GOLD CHAIR SPONSOR:
Dr. & Mrs. Stephen Hood

Jay Niepoetter

Bass Clarinet

Open

Bassoons

Erich Heckscher – Principal, Bennett S. Rubin Chair
GOLD CHAIR SPONSOR:
Dave & Karen McKinney

Scott Cassada
Susan Copeland Wilson

Contrabassoon

Susan Copeland Wilson

Horns

Open Principal, Libby Powell Chair
Mark L. Hughes – Assistant Principal
Chandra Cervantes
James D. Vaughn
Paul Hopkins

Trumpets

Nathan Clark – Principal, Robert T. Kenney Chair
Scott A. Nelson – Robert W. Grab Chair
Matthew Misener

Trombones

Liam Glendening – Principal, Richard T. Whisner Chair
Jeffrey Gaylord
Kaz Kruszewski

Tuba

Zachary Bridges – Principal, Claude J. Bryant Chair

Timpani

Jonathan Milke + – Principal, William J. Reuter Chair

Percussion

Donald A. Spinelli – Principal, Donald R. Harsh, Jr. Chair
Julie Angelis Boehler
Robert Hayden Jenkins

Harp

Maryanne Meyer + Acting Principal

Piano/Keyboard

OpenJames G. Pierné Chair

Personnel Manager

Christian Simmelink +

Librarian

D. Marianne Gooding

Recording Engineer

Bill Holaday


* On leave

+ One-year position