Music Director Steve Lipsitt

Steven Lipsitt is in his eighth season as Music Director of the Boston Classical Orchestra, where subscription audiences have grown, and critics have called his work "an impressive demonstration of talent and discipline," "resolute and impassioned," "truthful, substantial, finely graded."

Since winning first prize in the Dimitris Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition in November 1996, Steven Lipsitt has made his Russian debut with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and has conducted concerts with the Athens Camerata, the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Orchestra, the Orchistra ton Chromaton of Athens, and the St. Petersburg Camerata. A frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the United States and abroad, Mr. Lipsitt has led the West Czech Symphonic Orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra of São Paulo (Brasil), the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra (Canada), the Colorado Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, the Spokane Symphony Orchestra (Washington), and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic (New York), and has served as cover conductor for the symphony orchestras of St. Louis, Toronto, and Boston. Foreign critics have hailed his "exalted and well-structured performances" (Le Monde de la Musique, Paris) and praised his "technically and expressively balanced interpretations" (Adesmeftos Typos, Athens).

Active in opera as well, Mr. Lipsitt has conducted the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, and served as music director of Boston Lyric Opera's workshop production of Robert Aldridge's Elmer Gantry. In 1994 his production of Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis was called "compelling" by the New York Times, while the Boston Globe observed: "a razor-sharp intelligence was balanced by a generosity of spirit...Steven Lipsitt conducted with an unusual degree of skill and caring." The Boston Globe also hailed his "astonishingly vivid account of two scenes from Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov," writing: "Steven Lipsitt's conducting showed real mastery." He has assisted with major productions at English National Opera, Washington Opera, Scottish Opera, and Tanglewood.

Also dedicated to the training of young musicians, Mr. Lipsitt has served on the conducting faculties of the Tanglewood Institute, New England Conservatory, and Boston University, and has prepared student orchestras for Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohnányi, Leon Kirchner, Luciano Berio, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and Sergiu Comissiona. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale University, where he was the recipient of awards for exceptional promise and excellence in conducting. His principal studies were with Otto-Werner Mueller at Yale, and in master classes with Herbert Blomstedt, Helmuth Rilling, Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School, and Gustav Meier at Tanglewood. He is also a recipient of the first prize of the 1993 Marienbad (Czech Republic) International Conductors' Mastercourse under Georg Tintner.

• Music Director Laureate - Harry Ellis Dickson
• Concertmaster - Sandra Stecher Kott
• The BCO musicians
• Pre-concert lecturer - Mary Ann Nichols

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