GUEST CONDUCTOR

Bernard Rubenstein returns to conduct the Metropolitan Classical Ballet Orchestra for the second time this season. He conducted the orchestra for The Nutcracher in December of last year. He is the Music Director of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony. He graduated with distinction from the Eastman School of Music and received his Master’s degree from Yale University School of Music. He has held many important conducting posts, including Music Director of the Tulsa Philharmonic, and Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He has guest conducted orchestras and operas in the U.S., Canada, Central America, Mexico, Europe and Asia. This year, he returned to Cuba for the sixth time for concerts with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in Havana and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba. Rubenstein has also repeated performances of the Grammy nominated CD, The Five Seasons. In 2006, he conducted the Cosmopolitan Symphony Orchestra at New York’s Town Hall in a program including the world premier of the Violin Concerto by Cuban composer Jorge Marín.

Chosen by the U.S. State Dept. as a cultural specialist, he guest conducted the Mongolian National Opera in the first all-Asian performances of Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess. Other guest conducting included: Monterey Symphony,

the Tulsa Philharmonic and the Santa Fe Symphony; performances with the Reno Philharmonic; the Austin Symphony; concerts and recording with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Symphony Orchestra of Bilbao, Spain; the Hamilton Philharmonic in Canada; the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; the Anchorage Symphony; the National Symphonies of Costa Rica and Puerto Rico; the Breckenridge Chamber Orchestra in Colorado; the Santa Barbara Symphony; Eastman Opera Theater; and Lincoln Center in New York City.

A Fulbright award and Martha Baird Rockefeller grant took Rubenstein to Europe where he conducted for the Frankfurt Opera, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony, and the radio orchestras of Austria, Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne. After receiving recognition as a prize winner in the international conducting competition “Serate Musicale Fiorentino” in Florence, Italy, Rubenstein was chosen as a conductor with the Stuttgart Opera. Mr. Rubenstein has conducted orchestras for the Tulsa Ballet Theater, BalletMet, Columbus, Ohio, Paris Opera Ballet on tour with Rudolph Nureyev and for the Ruth Page Television Documentary, WTTW, Chicago.