Brian Stone
We are excited to welcome to the podium the prize-winning conductor and award-winning teacher Brian Stone.
“Stone is a passionate
conductor. He eschews the baton,
preferring to use his hands and, indeed, his whole
body, to direct the players.
He often appeared to be dancing ecstatically to the
music, even as he was
utterly focused on the players. They responded
magnificently, giving this big,
warm symphony (Dvorak #6) the treatment it deserves.”
Chico (CA) News and
Review “Conductor Brian Stone had
everyone’s attention;”
Boston Globe “The
hero
was conductor Brian Stone ...(who) galvanized the
Boston Conservatory Orchestra
and made musical
sense of every bar.” Boston Phoenix Brian
Stone has worked both in the opera pit and on the
concert stage with
professional orchestras in California, Missouri,
Indiana, Utah, Maryland,
Florida, Alaska, Washington, Kansas, Connecticut,
Romania, Germany, Hungary and
Bulgaria, and students at The University of Maryland,
The Johns Hopkins
University, Ohio University, Boston Conservatory,
University of Mobile, San
Diego State University, Stanford University, the
National Conservatory of
Colombia, The Claremont Colleges (CA), The Catholic
University of America, and
the All-State Honor Orchestras of Delaware, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Southern California, to both public and institutional
acclaim. In opera, Brian has conducted some
fifteen different full
productions and has served as a judge for the National
Association for
Teachers of Singing and the Austrian-American
Society’s Mozarteum
Scholarship. He has adjudicated high school orchestra
festivals in five states
and numerous solo and ensemble competitions as well. As a young conductor, Brian was
chosen to conduct in the
League of American Orchestras’ Bruno Walter
National Conductor Preview
with the Utah Symphony, The Festival at Sandpoint’s Young
Conductor Showcase
with the Spokane Symphony and, was awarded the
“Special Prize” at an
international conducting competition in Romania. In
2008 he received the
prestigious Jessie B. DuPont Award in Music
Education in recognition of
his work and in 2009 he was awarded the “First Honours
Diploma” in the 29th
MasterPlayers Music Competition. Brian began music playing saxophone
in the public schools
here in Santa Monica. Already an exceptional player as
a youth, he went on to
win several competitions. Later, he took up viola and
piano, and started
composing as well. Stone is a graduate of Bennington
College in Vermont, where
he studied composition, viola, and literature. Dr.
Stone received a Master of
Music degree and a Doctorate in conducting from the
Peabody Conservatory where
he studied with Frederik Prausnitz and Gustav Meier.
Further studies in
conducting took place at Le Domaine Forget in Canada
with Otto-Werner Mueller
and two summers at the Festival at Sandpoint with
Gunther Schuller. He also
studied with Harvey Pittel on saxophone, Jacob Glick
on viola, Bill Dixon in
improvisation, and Allen Shawn and Henry Brant in
composition. In addition to his work with the
Santa Monica Youth
Orchestra and the Westside Chamber Orchestra, this
season Brian will conduct
concerts with the Palisades Symphony, the Westlake
Village Symphony, the Santa
Clarita Symphony (where he is music director) as well
as leading Mission
Opera’s production of The Merry Widow and
Ozark Lyric Opera’s production
of Beethoven Fidelio in Springfield, Missouri.