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 Roger Kalia, Assistant Conductor
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Roger Kalia is the newly appointed Assistant Conductor of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra beginning in the 2013-14 season. In this position, he will conduct a variety of concerts including Family, Education, and Community run-out concerts while covering all classical subscription concerts for Maestro Christopher Warren-Green and guest conductors.
As a recipient of the BMI/Lionel Newman Conducting Scholarship and YMF Conducting Grant, Mr. Kalia is entering his second season as Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles. Winner of YMF's 2012 National Conductor Search, he follows in the footsteps of such illustrious conductors as Michael Tilson-Thomas, Andre Previn, and Myung Whun Chung. Highlights of his first season included two world premieres, a fully-staged production of Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat with actor Jack Black at the LA County Museum of Art as part of their "Sundays Live" series, a unique multimedia presentation and performance of Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and the orchestra's debut performance at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels "Virgin of Guadalupe" Celebration, which was televised and streamed worldwide. In September 2013, he will conduct the Debut Orchestra in its first-ever performance at the Ford Theater in a unique concert titled "Gamers Jam: Music Behind the Screen," which will feature music from the video game industry.
Mr. Kalia made his subscription debut with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra in October 2011 after winning Second Prize in their inaugural International Conducting Competition. In recent seasons he has worked with orchestras and ensembles across North America and Europe including the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra de Cadaqués, Orchestra of Colours (Greece), Manhattan School of Music Symphony, Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony, Festival Orchestra of Sofia, Houston Ballet Academy, Chelsea Symphony, Psappha New Music Ensemble, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. As Music Director of the Lake George Music Festival, Mr. Kalia conducts the Lake George (NY) Festival Orchestra every summer, a festival which brings together musicians from such orchestras as the St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Kansas City Symphony and the country's premier conservatories.
Recipient of the 2013 Solti Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation U.S., Mr. Kalia was chosen by former New York Philharmonic Music Director Kurt Masur to participate in his weeklong Conducting Seminar at the Manhattan School of Music in January 2013. He was also personally selected by David Zinman to conduct the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich as part of his 2011 International Conducting Masterclass at the Zurich Festspiele. In 2011 Mr. Kalia was also awarded a Bruno Walter Conducting Scholarship to attend the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music where he studied with Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier. In 2010 Mr. Kalia was a Conducting Fellow at the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, where he studied with Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff, and Larry Rachleff.
An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Kalia served as Assistant Conductor of the acclaimed Indiana University New Music Ensemble from 2009-2011. Highlights of his tenure include conducting numerous world premieres by faculty and student composers such as PQ Phan, Chappell Kingsland, Eric Lindsay and Teddy Niedermaier as well as conducting the U.S. premiere of Tôn Thất Tiết's Vent de Printemps. In addition, he conducted on the first-ever Double Exposure project, a unique collaboration between composers and film students at Indiana University where live music is performed to silent films. With the YMF Debut Orchestra, Mr. Kalia has led premieres by Paul Chihara, Ed Shearmur, Francisco Cortes-Alvarez and Alex Wurman. The Debut Orchestra will commission a world premiere by Paul Dooley during the 2013-14 season, aided by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has also led world premieres by Wang Lu with the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra and Lewis Forbes with the Psappha New Music Ensemble (Scotland). Of the Forbes, critic Gemma McGregor of the St. Magnus Festival Blog wrote, "Lewis used complex groupings and cross rhythms that propelled the players through the piece - fortunately Kalia was masterful in allowing it freedom but keeping it under control."
A native of New York, Roger recently completed his work as a Doctoral Conducting Fellow and Associate Instructor of Orchestral Conducting at Indiana University. As Assistant Conductor of the IU Opera Theater, he assisted and conducted stagings of La Bohème, Candide, and Bolcom's A View from the Bridge. From 2007-09, he was the Schissler Conducting Fellow at the University of Houston, where he earned his Master's in Orchestral Conducting and was inducted into the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society.
Roger's primary mentors include David Effron, Arthur Fagen, and Franz Anton Krager. Roger has undertaken additional studies with Franz Welser-Moest, David Zinman, Kurt Masur, Robert Spano, Marin Alsop, Hugh Wolff, Mei-Ann Chen, Gustav Meier, Larry Rachleff, and Murry Sidlin, among others.
For more information, please visit www.roger-kalia.com |
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Christopher Warren-Green, Music Director
Albert-George Schram, Guest Conductor
