2008 National Orchestra Honors Project

Larry Livingston

Larry Livingston is a distinguished conductor, educator, and administrator, and a highly respected motivational speaker. The founding Music Director of the Illinois Chamber Orchestra, Livingston has appeared with the Houston Symphony and in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series. He has conducted at the Festival de Musique in Evian, France, and has led the Stockholm Wind Orchestra, as well as the Leopoldinum Chamber, Chopin Academy, and Wroclaw Academy Orchestras in Poland. He served as Music Director of the Pan Pacific Festival Orchestras in Sydney, participated as a performer and clinician at the International Jazz Festival in Rome, and conducted an electro-acoustic ensemble in concerts in Tokyo under the auspices of Yamaha International. Mr. Livingston has led the American Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra, the USC Thornton Chamber and Symphony Orchestras in Los Angeles and the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble in Berlin. In 2001, he served on the jury for the renowned Besancon International Conducting Competition in Besancon, France.

Mr. Livingston has performed with soloists Keiko Abe, Ran Blake, Shelly Berg, John Barrows, Maureen Forrester, Adolph Herseth, Lawrence Lesser, Yehudi Menuhin, Robert Merrill, Itzhak Perlman, Donald Sinta, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and John Walz, and has premiered and/or recorded works by Jan Bach, Paul Cooper, Mario Davidovsky, Robert Erickson, Ernst Krenek, Kasia Livingston, Edwin London, Pauline Oliveros, Russell Peck, Roger Reynolds, and Yuji Takahashi.

Mr. Livingston frequently appears with professional, festival, collegiate, and all-state wind ensembles, bands and orchestras throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. From 1983 to 2002, he served as a conductor in the University of Michigan All-State Program at Interlochen, and has been the Conductor of the Festival Orchestra at Idyllwild Arts since 1989.

From 1997 to 2001, Mr. Livingston regularly toured Germany and Slovakia with the Internationale Junge Orchesterakademie. The performances and subsequent recordings were “the most successful in this organization’s history,” according to its director. In the last decade, he has conducted extensively in Eastern Europe, and particularly throughout Poland, leading orchestras in Warsaw, Wroclaw, Jelenia Gora, Bialystok, and Olsztyn, attracting consistent critical acclaim. Reviews described Òlong, unending applause, enthusiastic cheers, like at a rock concert, standing ovation.”

During the 2004-2005, Mr. Livingston toured with the famed Landes Jugend Orchester, served as clinician and guest conductor at the College Band Directors National Conference in Alice Tully Hall, led the New Mexico All-State Orchestra, and the USC Thornton School Symphony. In the 2005-2006 season, he appeared with the George Enescu Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra in Romania, the Katowice Academy Orchestra in Poland, the Oregon All State Orchestra, the Thornton Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, and served as clinician for the University of Northern Colorado Conducting Symposium. In 2006-07, Mr. Livingston conducted the Texas All-State Band, the All-State Orchestras of Colorado and Arizona, the National Bands of America Honor Orchestra the Thornton Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. During the present season, he will lead the Idyllwild Festival Orchestra at Disney Hall, the Thornton Symphony with guest soloists, Time for Three, the George Enescu Orchestra of Romania, the Colorado All-State Band, and the Music for All National Honor Orchestra.

Holding Baccalaureate and Master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, Mr. Livingston completed Ph.D. coursework in theoretical studies at the University of California, San Diego. He studied conducting and interpretation with Laurence Livingston, Elizabeth Green, William Revelli, Keith Humble, Rafael Druian, and Herbert Zipper. In 1988 he received the Alumnus of the Year Award from the University of Michigan School of Music. From 1977 to 1982, Mr. Livingston served as Vice President and Music Director of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he was also Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and Contemporary Music Ensemble. Subsequently, he became Dean of the Shepherd School of Music and Elma Schneider Professor of Music (Conducting) at Rice University in Houston. From 1986 until 2002, Mr. Livingston served as Dean of the USC Flora L. Thornton School of Music, where he is Chair of the Conducting Department, and Music Director of Thornton School Orchestras. In 2007, he received the Life in the Arts Award from Idyllwild Arts and an Outstanding Teacher Award from the student chapter of the USC Center for Religion. As a motivational speaker, he has established a national reputation for inspiring presentations to corporate and business leaders across the United States. Since 2002, he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Guitar Center, the worldÕs largest retail music store chain.