“An outstanding, flexible conductor with outspoken talent.”

Biography

  • In 2010, Gary Sheldon became principal conductor for the Miami City Ballet at the invitation of artistic director Edward Villella. "Gary Sheldon made an impressive debut as principal conductor. A veteran of the San Francisco Ballet, Sheldon deftly calibrated music and movement without sacrificing momentum or subtlety. Music and dance coalesced in celebratory fashion." - Lawrence Budman, South Florida Classical Review

    PHOTO: Gary Sheldon with the Miami City Ballet dancers and pianist Francisco Renno, following Jerome Robbins' "The Concert"

    The company's extensive repertoire conducted by Gary Sheldon, includes premieres by renowned choreographers Alexie Ratmansky, Justin Peck, Liam Scarlett and Brian Brooks. Now under the leadership of artistic director Lourdes Lopez, the company has been recognized as "an exceptional troupe, by Balanchine standards, anywhere in the world" - New York Times.

    Sheldon has also conducted for the company on tour. Miami City Ballet made its Paris debut at the Théâtre du Châtelet as the featured dance company for the annual Les Etés de la Danse Festival in 2011. Subsequent touring conducted by Sheldon has included the Koch Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Los Angeles Music Center and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

    PHOTO: Gary Sheldon (center) with artistic director Lourdes Lopez (seated left) and the Miami City Ballet dancers and Opus One Orchestra on the set of the Nutcracker

    Sheldon has held other conducting positions with Atlanta Ballet, BalletMet and San Francisco Ballet. Eden Eden, chor.

    Wayne McGregor/San Francisco Ballet - "The musical performance of "Dolly" by Steve Reich, conducted by Gary Sheldon, may have been worth the price of admission." - Allan Ulrich, Voice of Dance

    Guest conducting has included the Alberta Ballet, Delta Festival Ballet, Hartford Ballet, New Orleans Ballet, Syracuse Ballet and the Norwegian Ballet. He has also conducted pas de duex for Cynthia Gregory and Alexander Godunov, Marianna Tcherkassky and Fernando Bujones and Susan Jaffe and Ethan Stiefel.

    Sleeping Beauty - "Conductor Gary Sheldon transformed the Columbus Symphony Orchestra into a true partner to the dancers in every way, with seemingly ideal tempos and a flair for excitement, surely one reason the company moved so musically from beginning to end." - Barbara Zuck, Columbus Dispatch

  • Spoleto Festival

    Don Pasquale

    Eugene Opera

    Tosca

    Un Ballo in Maschera

    Sarasota Opera

    The Merry Widow

    Syracuse Opera Theatre

    La Traviata

    Un Ballo in Maschera

    La Perichole

    Beauty and the Beast (DiGiacomo)

    Hansel and Gretel

    Opera Columbus

    Cavalleria Rusticana

    Pagliacci

    Vanqui (Burrs)

    Lancaster Festival

    Turandot

    PHOTO: Turandot at the Lancaster Festival

    La Traviata - "The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra played with finesse. Gary Sheldon...had matters under total and knowing control." - Earl George, Syracuse Post-Standard

  • Gary Sheldon served as principal conductor at the Festival at Sandpoint in Idaho from 1999 - 2019 and he was the music director of the Marin Symphony in California from 1990-2000.

    PHOTO: Conducting the Marin Symphony with Itzhak Perlman

    "Together with music director Gary Sheldon, Perlman offered a vivid, thoroughly enjoyable account of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. The final...was splendid, with Perlman tearing through the melodies with engaging with and Sheldon skillfully charting the movement's shifts of tempo and tone." Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

    With the Marin Symphony, Sheldon established the orchestra's annual composer symposia, the Marin Symphony Chorus, the Orchestra's great artist series, pops concerts and the Orchestra's first children's concert series, including the annual program, Where in the World of Music is Carmen Sandiego?©, a program he created based on the popular children's television show and software game, which subsequently toured throughout the United States. (Wikipedia page link here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_of_Music_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F

    PHOTO: In rehearsal with Andre Watts

    Mahler Symphony No . 5 - "The Marin Symphony, under Sheldon's secure, knowing, effective leadership, succeeded in giving an excellent performance." Janos Gereben, Marin Independent Journal

    Sibelius Symphony No. 1 - "Gary Sheldon's conducting, here as throughout, was passionate and precise at once." Michelle Dulak, San Francisco Classical Voice

    All-American Pops - "Maestro Gary Sheldon introduced the program and gave a short commentary before each work in his extremely articulate and witty manner." Carol Benet, Marin Independent Journal

    Gary Sheldon also served as Interim Music Director and Associate Conductor of the Columbus Symphony in Ohio from 1982-1987. He conducted over 200 classical, pops and educational performances with the Orchestra. Guest artists included Ella Fitzgerald, Barry Tuckwell, Yefim Bronfman, Andras Schiff, Wynton Marsalis and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson trio.

    Gary Sheldon with President Gerald R. Ford, Jack

    Nicklaus, Bob Hope and the Columbus Symphony Pops Orchestra

    Sheldon also served as assistant conductor of the New Orleans Symphony under music director Leonard Slatkin. He performed with guest soloists Van Cliburn and Itzhak Perlman, and conducted over 100 performances throughout the Southeast on tour with orchestra. "Copland's Appalachian Spring was a complete delight. Conductor Sheldon gave the work rhythmic assurance, theatrical life and romantic yearning." Frank Gagnard, New Orleans Times-Picayune

    Following conducting studies at Washington University in St. Louis with Walter Susskind and Leonard Slatkin, and studies at the Juilliard School in New York with Jean Morel and Sixten Ehrling, Sheldon was selected as the only American conducting fellow at Tanglewood in 1981 where he studied with Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, Kurt Masur and Leonard Bernstein.

  • BALLET

    “Butterfly”
    • Puccini, arr. Sheldon
    • Choreography by David Nixon
    • World premiere: BalletMet and the Columbus Symphony

    Cole

    Cole Porter, arr. Sheldon

    Choreography by Wayne Soulant

    World premiere: BalletMet and the Columbus Symphony

    "The maestro's arrangements of Cole Porter tunes, taken from the ballet "Cole", were exceptional." - David A Frye, Palm Beach Daily News

    ORCHESTRA

    Variations on a Theme of Handel

    World premiere: Columbus Symphony Orchestra

    Festival Overture

    World premiere: Lancaster Festival Orchestra

    Klezmer Medley

    World premiere: Lancaster Festival Orchestra

    Carmen Sandiego© Theme

    Sean Altman & David Yazbek, arr. Sheldon

    World premiere: Marin Symphony

    ORCHESTRA and CHORUS

    "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" (Jerusalem of Gold)

    Naomi Shemer, arr. Sheldon, publ. Transcontinental

    World premiere: Marin Symphony at the Marin Jewish Community Center

    "Perhaps the most moving moment of the whole evening was Sheldon's rich arrangement of Naomi

    Shemer's Jerusalem of Gold, which featured the adult choir and two of the city's cantors, Vicki L. Axe and Jack Chomsky." - Barnet D. Wolf, Columbus Dispatch

    CONCERT BAND

    Mississippi River Overture

    First recording: The Ohio State University Concert Band

    Klezmer Medley, 2005

    CHAMBER MUSIC

    Three Shakespeare Songs for soprano and piano

    Three Wordsworth Songs for baritone and piano

    World premiere: Cantor Jack Chomsky, Congregation Tifereth Israel

    String Quartet, "Quartetto"

    World Premiere, Stonegate Quartet

    "The Light from Long Ago"

    Lyrics: Michael Bronshvag for solo voice or chorus, publ. Transcontinental

    Choralleluia for brass septet

    Winner: NYSSMA Composition prize

    Festival Fanfare

    World premiere: Lancaster Festival Brass Quintet

    Three Etudes for Marimba

    FILM

    "Mississippi River Music"

    World Premiere: Mississippi River Museum, Memphis

    Recording by members of the New Orleans Symphony

    ORCHESTRAL POPS ARRANGEMENTS Patti Austin

    Crystal Bowersox

    Sheena Easton

    Sara Evans

    Don Felder

    Sybarite Five

    Kenny Loggins

    The Mavericks

    Martina McBride

    JoDee Messina

    The Band Perry

    Mo Pitney

    Thompson Square

    Clay Walker

 
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Gary Sheldon returns for his seventh season as principal conductor for Miami City Ballet. He previously held positions with San Francisco Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and Ballet Met. He has guest conducted for numerous ballet companies throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, as well as at the Aspen Festival, Artpark, Grant Park Concerts, Spoleto Festival, Meadowbrook Festival and Tanglewood. Sheldon was a prizewinner in the BBC’s Rupert Competition and the American Symphony Orchestra’s Stokowski Competition, and he recently won top prize in the American Prize for Orchestral Conducting Competition. Sheldon currently holds positions with the Lancaster Festival in Ohio (artistic director) and the Festival at Sandpoint in Idaho (principal conductor). He is a native of Bay Shore, N.Y. and a graduate of the Juilliard School and Institut de Hautes Etudes Musicales in Montreux, Switzerland.

Gary Sheldon is the 2010 winner of The American Prize in Conducting in the professional orchestra division. In a separate category, the Lancaster Festival Orchestra, which Sheldon founded in 1988, won The American Prize in Orchestral Performance. Their winning recording features music of composer William Balcom on the CD Ragomania, released on the Marquis Classics label last year, with clarinet soloist Richard Stoltzman.

Sheldon was appointed principal conductor for the Miami City Ballet by artistic director Edward Villella. He continues to serve as principal conductor at the Festival at Sandpoint in Idaho as well as artistic director of the Lancaster Festival in Ohio.

Gary Sheldon has conducted for leading artists of our time, including Andre Watts, Van Cliburn, Ella Fitzgerald, Wynton Marsalis, Itzhak Perlman, Arturo Sandoval, BarryTuckwell and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School and studied with Leonard Bernstein at Tan lewood.

Sheldon has guest conducted the BBC Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, No1wegian Ballet, Rochester Philharmonic, Sarasota Opera, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Utah Symphony. He has served as principal conductor for the Opera Theatre of Syracuse and also conducted opera at Artpark, the Eugene Opera, Lancaster Festival, San Diego Opera Center, Sarasota Opera, Spoleto Festival and Opera Columbus where he led the world premiere of the gospel opera Vanqui.

 

Under Sheldon's leadership, the Lancaster Festival has grown to become a popular annual two-week summer arts festival that presents over eighty events, art exhibits and concerts in historic Lancaster, Ohio. The Lancaster Festival Orchestra musicians, coming from all around the countty, perform symphony, opera, ballet and chamber music at Ohio University in Lancaster and numerous other venues throughout the community. Distinguished composers in residence at the festival have included William Bolcom, Leslie Burrs, Gary Friedman, Kirke Mechem, Rodion Shchedrin, Gang Situ, Augusta Reade Thomas and Joan Tower.

Sheldon has previously served as principal conductor of the Opera Theatre of Syracuse and Ballet Met, principal guest conductor of the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony and San Francisco Ballet and music director of the Marin Symphony, for which he was recipient of the Distinguished Citizens Award from the Marin Cultural Museum for his outstanding dedication to arts education programming and community outreach. He was also a prizewinner in the BBC/Rupert and Leopold Stokowski conducting competitions.

Leading the Marin Symphony from 1990-2000, Sheldon established the annual Bay Area Composers Symposium, the orchestra's first pops concert series, a new symphony chorus and the orchestra's innovative young peoples concert series, based on the Carmen Sandiego® software game.

Sheldon's own orchestral compositions include the ballet scores to Cole and Butterfly (based on the music of Cole Porter and Puccini), Klezmer Medley and Mississippi River Overture.