Artistic Personnel
Elizabeth Schulze, Music Director
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 24th season as the Music Director and Conductor of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra and is the recently 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.
Updated: August 2023
2023-2024 Orchestra
First Violins
Robert Martin
Concertmaster
MSO Guild Chair
Joanna Natalia Owen
Associate Concertmaster
Lysiane Gravel-Lacombe +
Assistant Concertmaster
Brent Price +
Thomas Marks Chair
Kristin Bakkegard
H. Lee Brewster
Yen-Jung Chen
Mauricio D. Couto
Sarah D'Angelo +
Megan Gray
Catherine Nelson
Petr Skopek
Second Violins
Marissa Murphy
Principal
J. Emmet Burke Chair
Ariadna Buonviri
Associate Principal
Julianna Chitwood
Assistant Principal
Karin Kelleher
Ruth Erbe
Teresa L. Gordon
Melanie Kuperstein
Swiatek Kuznik
Kat Whitesides
Patricia Wnek-Schram
Violas
Phyllis Freeman *
Principal
Alan J. Noia Chair
Magaly Rojas Seay +
Acting Principal
Daphne Benichou *
Associate Principal
Stephanie Knutsen +
Acting Associate Principal
Catherine Armoury +
Assistant Principal
Sungah Min
Rachel Holaday
Alice Tung
Heidi Remick +
Sean Lyons *
Cellos
Todd Thiel
Principal
J. Ramsay Farah Chair
Katlyn DeGraw
Associate 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
Laura Kaufman Mowry +
Acting Principal
Marjorie M. Hobbs Chair
Dariya Nikolenko +
Acting Principal
Marjorie M. Hobbs Chair
Nicolette Driehuys Oppelt
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
Jay Niepoetter
Bass Clarinet
Open
Bassoons
Erich Heckscher
Principal
Bennett S. Rubin Chair
Scott Cassada
Susan Copeland Wilson
Contrabassoon
Susan Copeland Wilson
Horns
Open Position
Principal
Libby Powell Chair
Mark Hughes
Assistant Principal
Chandra Cervantes
James D. Vaughn
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
Open Position
Principal
Donald R. Harsh, Jr. Chair
Julie Angelis Boehler
Acting Principal
Robert Jenkins
Harp
Maryanne Meyer +
Principal
Piano/Keyboard
Open Position
James G. Pierné Chair
Personnel Manager
Christian Simmelink
Librarian
D. Marianne Gooding
Recording Engineer
Bill Holaday
* On leave
+ One-year position