A champion of music of our time, having led her orchestras in over 400 works by American composers, including more than 80 world premieres, Ms. Falletta is equally dedicated to the expansion of the repertoire for guitar.  The JoAnn Falletta International Composers’ Competition, held in conjunction with the Concerto Competition, was conceived with the goal of expanding the classical music repertoire and exposing audiences worldwide to new and important works for the guitar.  Ms. Falletta also enjoys composing original transcriptions and arrangements for guitar.  Several of these are published by E.C. Schirmer.

A prolific recording artist, Ms. Falletta has almost 40 orchestral recordings in her discography, and ten new discs either being released or recorded this season with the BPO, the VSO, the London Symphony, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonia.  She has also received wide critical acclaim for her guitar chamber music recordings. This summer, the Virginia Arts Festival released Borrowed Treasures, Ms. Falletta’s third disc of chamber music for guitar, featuring Ms. Falletta as guitarist and her original transcriptions for guitar, flute and clarinet.  Minnesota Public Radio called Ms. Falletta’s arrangements “a welcome addition to the repertoire”.  Schubert’s Guitar, released on the Koch label, which features Ms. Falletta’s original transcriptions of Schubert’s works for guitar, clarinet, flute and soprano, was hailed by Fanfare Magazine for its “power and intensity”, praising JoAnn Falletta as “a virtuoso on the guitar as well as a world-class orchestral conductor”. Ms. Falletta’s first guitar chamber recording project for Koch, The Viennese Guitar, with works by Schubert, Kreutzer and Beethoven, similarly received critical acclaim for the “marvelous performances” and “superlative chamber playing” by Ms. Falletta and her colleagues, Robert Alemany, clarinet,  Alexa Still, flute, Paul Neubauer, viola and Ronald Thomas, cello. 

Before arriving at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music 12 years ago, Mark Gibson served as principal conductor of the Alabama Symphony, visiting director of orchestral studies at the Eastman School of Music, music director of the New York City Opera National Company, Ash Lawn-Highland Summer Festival and Opera de Mahon (Menorca). Mr. Gibson has also served as artistic director of the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca in Italy. He has conducted numerous opera companies and orchestras around the world including Minnesota Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Pacific, New Orleans Opera, Cleveland Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Spoleto U.S.A., Gloria Opera Company, Seoul, orchestras in Beijing, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Qingdao, China, the Opera de Valencia, Opera de Malaga and Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. He is a frequent guest lecturer and has led master classes and concerts at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.  Recent engagements include Die Zauberflöte at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, a concert with the US Army Orchestra and master classes in Taipei, Beijing and Chengdu.  He co-wrote and edited The Modern Conductor, 7th edition.  Upcoming engagements include a concert with the 2010 International Viola Congress and the final opera gala concert with CCM Spoleto this summer and concerts in Beijing and Chengdu in the fall.

Young American conductor Andrew Grams has served as the resident conductor of the Florida Orchestra and completed his three-year term as assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra in 2007. He was appointed to that post by Franz Welser-Möst in June, 2004.

As one of America’s most promising and talented young conductors, Mr. Grams has already made debut appearances with many of the great orchestras of the world including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia Rome and the orchestras of Baltimore, Dallas, Houston and others.

Mr. Grams made his first subscription series appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra in May 2006 conducting Schoenberg’s Second Chamber Symphony, and he conducted his first series of full-length subscription concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra in November 2006. He led programs with the orchestra at the Blossom Music Center in 2006 and 2007 as well as at the new Miami Performing Arts Center in the winter of 2006/07.

This season will bring debuts for Mr. Grams with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, the Edmonton Symphony, the Melbourne Symphony, and the Hamburg Symphony among others, and he will return to conduct the Cleveland Orchestra as well in a performance of Balanchine masterpieces with the Miami City Ballet.

In 2002, Grams was appointed the assistant conductor of the Reading Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania and returned to conduct that orchestra again in 2005. He was selected to spend the summer of 2003 studying with David Zinman, Murry Sidlin and Michael Stern at the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, and he returned to that program again in 2004.

A Maryland native raised in Severn, Andrew Grams began conducting at the age of 17, when he directed the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan. In 1999 he received a bachelor of music degree in violin performance from the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Stephen Clapp, and in 2003 he received a conducting degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he worked with Otto-Werner Mueller. Also an accomplished violinist, Mr. Grams was a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra at Lincoln Center from 1998 to 2004, serving as acting associate principal second violin in 2002 and 2004. In addition, he has performed with ensembles including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the New Jersey Symphony.

Lauded by the Cincinnati Enquirer for his “natural facility and convincing musicianship on the podium,” Tito Muñoz is increasingly recognized as one of the most gifted conductors of his generation. He is currently Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra, appointed by Franz Welser-Möst in April 2007, and a League of American Orchestras Conducting Fellow. He previously served as Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.

An alumnus of the National Conducting Institute, Mr. Muñoz made his professional conducting debut in 2006 with the National Symphony Orchestra. That same year, he made his Cleveland Orchestra debut at the Blossom Music Festival at the invitation of David Zinman. The 2006-2007 season included his critically acclaimed subscription debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, stepping in for an ailing Krzysztof Penderecki. Other recent engagements include appearances with the Indianapolis Symphony, Cincinnati Pops, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra. Abroad, he made his European debuts with the Orchestre Lyrique de Région Avignon-Provence and Ensemble ‘05 at Italy’s Ritratti 2008 festival.

The 2008-2009 season included performances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Eugene Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Princeton Symphony, Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. Additionally, he made his operatic debut with the Opéra National de Lorraine in performances of Caballero’s Los sobrinos del Capitán Grant as well as a successful debut with the Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy, which led to an immediate re-engagement for subscription concerts in the spring of 2010. In the 2009-2010 season, Mr. Muñoz makes his subscription debut with The Cleveland Orchestra, a return subscription appearance with the Cincinnati Symphony, and debuts with the Toledo, Hartford, and El Paso Symphonies as well as the Mexico City Philharmonic. Other upcoming engagements include the San Antonio Symphony and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra.

Since the summer of 2006, Mr. Muñoz has made regular appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival. Summer 2009 included a performance with the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra as well as performances with The Cleveland Orchestra and The Joffrey Ballet. Other festival appearances included the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, and performances at the Grant Park Music Festival with singer Luciana Souza and the Luna Negra Dance Theater.

During the summers of 2004 through 2006, Mr. Muñoz attended the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen where he studied with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin and participated in master classes with Asher Fisch, Leon Fleisher, George Manahan, David Robertson, and Leonard Slatkin. He is the winner of the Aspen Music Festival's 2005 Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize and the 2006 Aspen Conducting Prize, and in summer 2007, he returned to Aspen as the festival's Assistant Conductor.

Also an accomplished violinist, Mr. Muñoz has performed in many of New York’s leading ensembles including the New York Virtuosi, Ensemble Sospeso, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as numerous Broadway shows. As a studio musician he has recorded for Albany Records, RCA Victor and Sony.

Born in 1983 in New York City, Mr. Muñoz began his musical training on the violin at age thirteen in the Juilliard School's Music Advancement Program, continuing studies on violin and composition at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division. He attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, and was a member of the InterSchool Orchestras of New York and New York Youth Symphony, where he also served as Apprentice Conductor. He furthered his training at the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, as a violin student of Daniel Phillips.