Conducting

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

An acclaimed conductor, Gustav Meier is also known internationally as a teacher of conductors. He has led orchestras around the globe while teaching at Yale University, the Eastman School of Music, University of Michigan, and Tanglewood Music Center. His performances include appearances with the Zurich Tonhalle, Sao Paolo, China National, Pittsburgh, Colorado and Alabama Symphony Orchestras; New York City, Santa Fe, Miami, San Francisco, Zurich, and Minnesota Opera Companies; and the Budapest and Vienna State Opera Orchestras.

His students have appeared with every major orchestra and opera company in the United States and abroad, some currently serving as music directors of illustrious musical institutions. Recently, Marin Alsop was appointed music director of the Baltimore Symphony, the first woman to be named music director of a major U.S. orchestra. Yakov Kreizberg is chief conductor of the Netherlands Philharmonic, and Jun Markle is music director of the Mannheim National Theater. Other students have won first prizes in prestigious conducting competitions: the Karajan in Berlin, Stokowski and Lorin Maazel competitions in New York City, the First International Eduardo Mata Conducting Competition in Mexico City, and the Mario Gusella International Competition in Pecara, Italy.

Honored with the Ditson Prize for his commitment to American music, Maestro Meier is also the recipient of awards from Harvard and Columbia Universities. He holds honorary doctorates from Fairfield University in Connecticut, Kalamazoo College, and Michigan State University.

Maestro Meier completed his 27th and final season as Music Director of the Greater Lansing Symphony in May 2006. In October of 2010 he will start his 39th season as Music Director of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony. He is director of the conducting program at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. Conducting workshops take him to all corners of the world such as Vancouver, Canada; Cabrillo, California; New York City; Beijing, China; Prague, Czechoslovakia; and Sofia, Bulgaria.

Maestro Meier lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he and his wife, Emy, enjoy downtown living near Zingerman’s Deli, the Kerrytown Market, and Concert House. They have four children and seven grandchildren. In his “spare time” he is writing a memoir of his early years in Switzerland.