Conductors for the 2010 Concerts

Dr. Daniel Hornstein is the director of the Arts Magnet Orchestra program for the Huntsville City Schools as well as a Valley Conservatory faculty member. He also teaches German for the Huntsville City Schools and online through the Alabama ACCESS (distance-learning) Project. He has previously been a faculty member at the University of North Alabama, Minot State University (ND), and the University of Texas at Arlington. He has had a major career as an orchestra conductor, appearing in guest engagements in such widely-separated cities as Scottsdale, AZ,;Hickory, NC; Marianske Lazne (Marianbad), Czech Republic,; Munich, Germany; and Fairbanks, AL. He has served as a founding member of Minot State University’s Ambassador Brass Quintet and cellist of the MSU Faculty String Quartet as well as appearing with the Minot Chamber Chorale, Western Plains Opera, and Opera South as a vocal soloist.

A native North Dakotan, he was the first North Dakotan ever to be admitted to the National High School Student Soloist Hall of Fame, sponsored by the School Musician magazine. He attended Michigan State University under both a National Merit Scholarship and an MSU Band Scholarship. While a freshman, he was named one of “State’s Top Twenty” (out of a student body of 40,000), and was a member of the Honors College. He graduated summa cum laude after only three years of study.

It was then the time of the Vietnam War, and Dr. Hornstein served his country as the featured euphonium soloist of the USAF Band, Washington, DC. In addition to performing concerts in Washington and many ceremonial duties (often playing in the While House, at Arlington National Cemetery, and elsewhere in Washington), he soloed with the USAF Band on tour in every state of the union and on several overseas tours. Dr. Hornstein performed at the inauguration of President Nixon and for the funerals of Presidents Eisenhower, Truman, and Johnson.

During his enlistment, he earned his Master’s degree in Orchestral and Opera Conducting from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and began his study of the cello. Upon his discharge, Dr. Hornstein became the conductor of the Georgetown Symphony in Washington, DC, and began doctoral studies at Catholic University in music theory and musicology. Since then, he has led orchestras and taught in Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, Maryland, and North Dakota, and finished his Ph.D. at North Texas State, with a major in music education and minors in conducting and business management.

He and his family spent the 1995-96 academic year in Munich, Germany, on a Fulbright exchange, teaching music and English at the Willi-Brandt-Gesamtschule, studying cello, and earning the Zertifikat - Deutsch als Fremdsprache (German language proficiency certificate) from the Munich Volkshochschule and Goethe Institute. He was the associate principal cellist of the orchestra of the Bürger-Sänger-Zunft and a vocal soloist with the Munich Madrigal Choir, as well as serving as rehearsal conductor of both organizations. Dr. Hornstein was made a member of the 160-year old musical brotherhood of the Bürger-Sänger-Zunft, the only American ever, joining such other musical luminaries as Richard Strauß and Richard Wagner. He and his family were featured in a documentary on “Fifty Years of the Fulbright” produced by Deutsche Welle, broadcasting arm of the German government. This documentary was shown on nationwide German television and has been translated into five different languages.

Dr. Hornstein has presented several recitals (on both low brass and the cello), performed as a vocal soloist, (including such works as Brahms: German Requiem and Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicci), served as editor of the North Dakota Music Educator, the Journal of the North Dakota Music Educators National Conference, and advisor for Minot State’s Collegiate MENC chapter, which was honored in 1999 with a “National Chapter of Excellence” award. Dr. Hornstein was personally honored with the “String Teacher of the Year” award from the North Dakota American String Teacher’s Association in the spring of 2000. In October of 2000, he was named by the National MENC organization as one of North Dakota’s “Top Ten Music Educators” and listed in the journal Teaching Music. He also has numerous publications in music and music education journals, including The American String Teacher, The Instrumentalist, Dakota Strings, and the North Dakota Music Educator.

Since coming to Alabama, he has served as President of the Alabama Orchestra Association and is currently the President of the Alabama chapter of the American Strings Teachers Association. He is one of only 13 music teachers in the state to hold the coveted National Certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

	M I C H A E L M O R G A N M u s i c D i r e c t o r & C o n d u c t o r
.	Currently in his twentieth year as Music Director of Oakland East Bay Symphony, Michael Morgan was born in Washington, DC, where he attended public schools and began conducting at the age of 12. While a student at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, he spent a summer at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, studying with Gunther Schuller and Seiji Ozawa. It was during this summer that he first worked with Leonard Bernstein. His operatic debut was in 1982 at the Vienna State Opera conducting Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio. In 1986, Sir Georg Solti chose him to become the Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for five years under both Solti and Daniel Barenboim. In 1986 he was invited by Leonard Bernstein to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic. As a guest conductor he has appeared with most of America's major orchestras as well as the New York City Opera, St. Louis Opera Theater and Washington National Opera. In addition to his duties with Oakland East Bay Symphony, Maestro Morgan serves as Artistic Director of Oakland Youth Orchestra, Music Director of Sacramento Philharmonic, Artistic Director of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, and teaches the graduate conducting course at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 2002 and 2003 he taught conducting at the Tanglewood Music Center and has led conducting workshops around the country. As Stage Director he has led productions of the Bernstein Mass at the Oakland East Bay Symphony and stagings of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Festival Opera. As a chamber musician (piano) he has appeared on the Chamber Music Alive series in Sacramento as well as the occasional appearance in the Bay Area. In 2005, he received two national awards by major music associations. He was honored by the San Francisco Chapter of The Recording Academy with the 2005 Governors Award for Community Service. On the opposite coast, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) chose Morgan as one of its five 2005 Concert Music Award recipients. ASCAP further honored Oakland East Bay Symphony in 2006 with its Award for Adventurous Programming. The San Francisco Foundation has honored him with one of its Community Leadership Awards and he received an Honorary Doctorate from Holy Names University. He makes many appearances in the nation's schools each year, particularly in the East Bay, and is highly regarded as a champion of arts education and minority access to the arts. He serves on the Board of the American Symphony Orchestra League as well as the International House at the University of California at Berkeley. He makes his home in Oakland with his mother and sister.