This season the San Luis Obispo Symphony is auditioning five candidates for the position of music director. Marisa Waddell will speak with each one through May 2017. In this conversation, she chats with conductor David Handel about his vision and ideas for the Symphony, and with David Hamilton, the chairman of the search committee.
David Handel was named Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Bolivia at an early age. Building that organization into a model of artistic and organizational growth, has led him on to further appointments in Argentina, Chile and, now, as Principal Guest Conductor of the Moscow City Symphony - Russian Philharmonic. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Handel received a Bachelor of Musical Arts Degree in violin, philosophy and composition, and a Master’s Degree in orchestral conducting. Even before receiving his graduate degree in conducting, Maestro Kurt Masur took Handel under his wing as his apprentice conductor at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and later invited him to conduct the New York Philharmonic in a preview of young conducting talent at Carnegie Hall. He has represented the United States around the world as a Cultural Ambassador through U.S. State Department Cultural Specialists and Public Diplomacy Programs, conducting orchestras in the Middle East and Cuba.