Ron Spigelman - Music Director
The Centennial year of 2017 is Ron Spigelman's eighth year as Music Director of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta. Ron has an extensive history of musical leadership, and has held the posts of Principal Pops Conductor of both the Fort Worth and Syracuse Symphonies, Music Director of the Springfield Missouri Symphony, Associate Conductor with both the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestras, and has been the Music Director of the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet, San Angelo Symphony, and Texas Chamber Orchestra. He is establishing himself as a sought after guest conductor and in the past two years enjoyed engagements with several major orchestras including the Buffalo Philharmonic, Wichita Symphony and the Phoenix Symphony. He teaches conducting and special topics at Drury University in Missouri, and has just ended his tenure as a respected arts commentator and co-author of the blog:Sticks and Drones at www.insidethearts.com/sticks and drones.
Among his many career highlights, he lists his debut with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the critically acclaimed performance and world premier of Lowell Lieberman's Pegasus, as well as his equally acclaimed Carnegie Hall conducting debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic in 2004. Ron has accompanied a wide range of internationally renowned artists including Horacio Gutierrez, Richard Stoltzman, Pamela Frank, Sharon Isbin, Jubilant Sykes, Jon Kimura Parker, Edith Chen, Navah Perlman, Elissa Lee Kokkonen to name but a few. Pops artists he's had the pleasure to perform with include: Marvin Hamlisch, Wynonna Judd, Canadian Brass, Tanya Tucker, Kathy Mattea, Mark O'Connor, The King's Singers, Arturo Sandoval, Audra McDonald, Dianne Reeves, Cherish the Ladies, and legends James Taylor, Art Garfunkel, and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Spigelman is an honors graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, where his principal instrument of study was the Trumpet. As a soloist, he has performed with several British orchestras and at numerous music festivals in the UK, Belgium and Italy - including the Florence Maggio Musicale, at the invitation of the composer Luciano Berio. He still loves to play, and has been known to surprise audiences with a flourish now and then. Ron has also served as a faculty member for a Donald Thulean ASOL Conductors Workshop, and was Maestro James Conlon's assistant conductor for four consecutive Van Cliburn International Piano Competitions, between 1997 and 2005, a role he happily reprised for the 13th competition in June 2009.