Nathaniel Parker · Guest Conductor - May 14, 2009
Conductor Nathaniel Parker currently holds the positions of Assistant Conductor and Production Manager of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Music Director and Conductor of the Jackson Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Director of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra Community Music School. Mr. Parker is also presently a Graduate Conducting Intern at Michigan State University, where he is pursuing a D.M.A. in Orchestral Conducting under the guidance of Leon Gregorian and Raphael Jimenez, his primary conducting instructors.
Parker was recently named a finalist for the 2009-2010 Conducting Fellowship with the New World Symphony (FL). He was named Assistant Conductor for the spring 2009 opera productions of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and the world premiere of William Withem’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at Michigan State University. Last summer he served as Music Director for a full production of The Mikado, co-produced by the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Michigan Gilbert & Sullivan Society. In the spring of 2008, he was Assistant Conductor for and conducted a full performance of Bernstein’s Candide at Michigan State University. Parker made his debut as a guest conductor in the 2006-2007 season leading two concert cycles with the Firelands Symphony Orchestra (OH). Parker has served previously as Music Director and Conductor of the Mason Orchestral Society’s Community Orchestra and Youth Symphony (MI), and, before moving to Michigan in the fall of 2005, he held the position of Assistant Director of Music at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, New York, where he conducted a variety of ensembles, including a string orchestra, and jazz and pep bands, and taught music history and appreciation. Other previous positions include those of Interim Conductor of the New Music Festival of Sandusky (OH), and Graduate Assistant Conductor and Teaching Assistant at Bowling Green State University (OH).
In 2003 Parker received a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from Bowling Green State University, where he was a student of Emily Freeman Brown. His other conducting mentors include Virginia Allen, Gary W. Hill and Timothy Russell. In addition to his studies in academia, Mr. Parker has participated in numerous conducting masterclasses and workshops in the United States, England, Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. In these workshops, he conducted orchestras under the tutelage of nationally and internationally renowned conductors and conducting pedagogs including Christoph Eschenbach, George Hurst, Rodolfo Saglimbeni, Leonid Korchmar, Peter Gribanov, Christopher Zimmerman, David Hoose, Kirk Trevor, Mariusz Smolij and Paul Vermel. Mr. Parker began his collegiate musical studies at Arizona State University, where he studied bassoon with Jeffrey Lyman and, in 2001, graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Music degree in Bassoon Performance.
Parker has been the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards including graduate assistantship appointments from Michigan State University and Bowling Green State University, a full tuition waiver from Arizona State University, the 1999-2000 Arizona State University Outstanding Undergraduate in Music History/Theory/Composition Award, the Miles Dreskall Memorial Award for outstanding service to the ASU Symphony Orchestra, ASU Friends of Music scholarships, the Mildred McCrystal Memorial Scholarship, the Sally Kirner Memorial Scholarship, the Clay H. Blanke and Roberta Wood Blanke Scholarship, and the Louise Kerr Endowment. In the spring of 2000 he also received a grant for a music technology project from the Arizona State University Institute for Studies in the Arts.
A native of Sandusky, Ohio, Nathaniel Parker is a member of the Conductor’s Guild, the American Symphony Orchestra League, and the College Music Society.
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