Beyond the Baton - What Every Conductor Needs to Know

A native of California, DIANE WITTRY, is respected as an innovative conductor who maintains a dual career as an esteemed music director and acclaimed guest conductor throughout the world. Recently, Diane Wittry conducted concerts in Japan, Russia, the Slovak Republic, New York, Washington D.C, and New Jersey, as well as her regularly scheduled concerts with the orchestras in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

In the United States, Diane Wittry has led performances by, among others, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Houston, New Jersey, Olympia, San Diego, Stockton, Wichita, and Victoria, while her international engagements include concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Russia’s Maikop and Sochi symphony orchestras, the Slovak State Philharmonic, Kosice, Italy’s Sinfonia Dell’Arte di Firenze and Japan’s Orchestra Osaka Symphoniker

As the Music Director of both the Allentown Symphony Orchestra and Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, Diane Wittry has helped expand the size of each organization’s concert season, while reaching out to the diverse populations of the communities-at-large. She has been a tireless advocate for the development of extensive educational programs, and she has championed an exciting, innovative programming style for concerts of all types. In 2000, Ms. Wittry was singled out nationally by Symphony magazine as “a conductor to watch.”

Prior to this, Diane Wittry served as the Music Director of The Symphony of Southeast Texas. Her work in Beaumont, Texas garnered national attention for the exceptional artistic and organizational growth that occurred under her leadership. She has also conducted at the music festivals of Ojai and Penn’s Woods.

Diane Wittry began her conducting studies with Daniel Lewis at the University of Southern California, from which she graduated with honors. While still a student, she was the recipient of a conducting fellowship from the Aspen Music Festival. Her other teachers and mentors include Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Gustav Meier and Jorge Mester; most recently, she worked with the renowned Russian conductor Leonid Korchmar of the Kirov Opera, and Jorma Panula from the Stockholm Royal Academy.

Over the years, Diane Wittry has received many honors and awards, including the American Symphony Orchestra League’s 1996 Helen M. Thompson Award for outstanding artistic leadership of a regional orchestra. She has been the subject of profiles in The New York Times (September, 2002) and Newsweek (September, 1994). In 2000, Ms. Wittry received the “Women of Excellence” Award in Beaumont, Texas and, in 1999, the “Arts Ovation Award” from Allentown, Pennsylvania. Most recently, she became only the third American to be named – in recognition of her leadership in the arts and humanities – the recipient of the prestigious Fiorino Doro Award from the city of Vinci, Italy. She recently served as a music panelist for National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC; a juror for the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers’ 26th Annual Rudolf Nissim Composer’s Competition in New York; and an adjudicator for new compositions for the artist residency program, I-Park, in Connecticut. She is a sought after as a guest speaker and in 2006, was featured as a new music presenter for the Conductors Guild National Conference in New York. She has also spoken at numerous seminars hosted by the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Leadership Academy. Currently, Ms. Wittry is finishing a book entitled Beyond the Baton about artistic leadership for young conductors and music directors, to be published in the fall of 2006 by Oxford University Press.