GARY SHELDON - BIOGRAPHY

The 2006-07 season marks Gary Sheldon's 5th season as artistic director of the Lancaster Festival in Ohio and 20th as conductor of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra.

He is also in his 8th season as principal conductor of the Festival at Sandpoint in Idaho.

Maestro Sheldon was appointed Season Principal Guest Conductor for San Francisco Ballet. He made his debut with the company last season in Don Quixote.

In 2001, Gary Sheldon concluded a highly acclaimed ten-year position as music director of the Marin Symphony in California. He established the orchestra’s first young peoples concerts and pops concert series, the Bay-Area Composers Symposium, a new symphony chorus and numerous outreach activities.

Important premieres by the Marin Symphony under Maestro Sheldon included the United States Premiere of the ballet Estancia by Alberto Ginastera; the West Coast Premiere of Franz Liszt's recently discovered Piano Concerto No. 3; the world premiere of Double Concerto for Violin and Erhu by Gang Situ; and the world premiere of Psalm by Mark Volkert, winner of the Marin Symphony Composition Contest.

In 1996, Maestro Sheldon received the Bill Graham Memorial Award from the Marin Cultural Museum for Distinguished Service To The Arts.

Gary Sheldon has guest conducted the Detroit Symphony, Honolulu Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony, Tucson Symphony, Utah Symphony, Alberta Ballet, Ballet Met, Norwegian Ballet of Oslo, Radio Denmark Orchestra and the BBC Symphony in London.

He is also creator of the Carmen Sandiego family concert series based on the popular software game, “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?”™ The program has toured in dozens of cities around the country since 1995.

Maestro Sheldon recently conducted the world premiere of the opera Vanqui by Leslie Burrs with Opera Columbus. Last summer he conducted Turandot at the Lancaster Festival. He has also conducted for Eugene Opera, Syracuse Opera Theatre, Sarasota Opera and San Diego Opera Theatre. He has conducted at summer festivals including the Spoleto Festival, the Meadowbrook Festival, at Artpark and Grant Park Concerts in Chicago.

Sheldon's private conducting studies were with Sixten Ehrling, Leonard Slatkin, Walter Susskind and Kurt Masur, who called him "an outstanding, flexible conductor with outspoken talent to lead an orchestra". Felix Aprahamian, critic for the London Times, has remarked that Sheldon has "the most expressive left hand since Beecham."

Gary Sheldon is also a composer and arranger. His ballets Cole and Butterfly based on the music of Cole Porter and Puccini, have been widely performed. His Klezmer Medley and Jerusalem of Gold are published by Transcontinental.

GARY SHELDON - BIOGRAPHY