David Wroe

Conductor

A native of Great Britain, David Wroe is one of the more dynamic, and exciting forces on the podium today. He represents an impressive assimilation of experience, both as a Music Director, as well as a recipient of guest conducting endorsements from a catalogue of respected orchestras across the globe.

Mr. Wroe is Music Director of the Westfield Symphony Orchestra New Jersey, regular conductor at Opera Delaware, and Music Director of Music on the Mountain: Garrett Lakes Arts Summer Festival in Maryland. May of 2004 marked Mr. Wroe's debut with New York City Opera, where he led a reading of John Eaton's new opera Jim Jones. He returns to the company in the 2004-05 season and will conduct six performances of La Boheme in 2006.

The 2002-04 Seasons marked debuts and returns including L'Orchestre de Normandie (with which he tours northern France), L'Orchestra Lamoureux at Paris' renowned Theatre Chatelet with cellist Mstislav Rostropovitch, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, L'Orchestre National de Lille, a tour of Western Austria with Vorarlberg Symphony and at the Bregenz Fruhlings Festival, Delaware Symphony, Shenzhen Symphony (China), Symphony Nova Scotia, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, and Santa Fe Symphony. Other auspicious debuts include Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, New York City Ballet, De Moines Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonische Orchester der Stadt Heidelberg.

In 1999 Maestro Wroe completed his contract as Principal Guest Conductor at the City Opera of Heidelberg, conducting much of the major operatic repertoire. He has initiated an Opera in Concert series with his Westfield Symphony Orchestra to great critical review - repertoire including Porgy and Bess, Hansel and Gretel, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Aida, and Othello. He opened the newly formed Fresno International Grand Opera for their production of La Boh"me, and in 2003 debuted with The Ash Lawn Opera Festival (Virginia) in their production of La Cenorentala. He served as Judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council, New Jersey Regional Auditions in the spring of 2000, and again in 2002.

Early in his career Maestro Wroe was Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, leading the orchestra in Tanglewood and in Symphony Hall, in addition to touring Europe with the Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players. He demonstrated business acumen and ingenuity in founding of the Kansas City Camerata, of which he was Music Director for 7 years.

Maestro Wroe devotes considerable time to the musical education of young people, and from 1993-95, conducted in the Boston Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerts. He has taught and given master-classes at New England Conservatory, Harvard University, Beijing Central Conservatory, Montclair State University, and has served as Judge for the Music Assistance Fund administered by the American Symphony Orchestra League. In 2004, he was the Chairman of the Jury of the New Jersey Music Teachers Association's Concerto Competition.

Awards are numerous, including the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship at Tanglewood, recognition in United States Congress for his excellence in contributing to the community in Kansas City, and finalist in the 1st Bernstein International Conducting Competition. Maestro Wroe attended Lancing College, has a BMus from Manchester University (England), a MM from Northwestern (Chicago), and was a student of internationally renowned teacher Gustav Meier.

Conductor David Wroe has garnered international acclaim!

"Conductor David Wroe gets astonishing clarity from his Westfield Symphony Orchestra, along with dependably disciplined performances. There is little question that the ensemble has taken a huge step forward under his directorship. Among the .....freelance orchestras in the State (New Jersey), his has the most fervent musical personality and can be counted on for consistently competent performances.
NEWARK STAR-LEDGER (NJ), 02/07/05, Willa Conrad"

Successful start to the new season of the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg.
"
"We had the effective English conductor, David Wroe, to thank for the fact that there was a clear stylistic delineation between the varied compositions. With Handel's famous Fireworks Music usually entrusted to smaller, specialized ensembles, he avoided the dangers of a performance with a large romanticized orchestra, with clarity of texture and strong rhythmic integrity. Thus a festive Baroque sound enfolded with buffeted, antiphonal brass echo effects. With Bach's 3rd Orchestral Suite, David Wroe, in the Dance movements developed a natural swing, and the overplayed "Air" in his hands, became a study in first class string playing.
VORLARLBERGER NACHRICHTEN (Austria), 9/27/04"

"Guest conductor interprets lighter, darker aspects of love.
"The guest conductor [David Wroe] put plenty of passion into his performance last night at the Von Braun Center Concert Hall interpreting with great sensitivity music that spanned a range of styles and emotions .His gestures were definite, yet graceful. It seemed as if the concert were a collaboration, that he was a facilitator between different sections of the orchestra. At the same time Wroe worked hard to control volume, balance and phrasing.
"HUNTSVILLE TIMES, 10/20/02, Donna Fork"

" .conducting without a score, David Wroe drew every bit of passion, sadness, and resignation from Strauss' Metamorphosen. The silence at the conclusion was as riveting as the music had been. Some listeners were visibly moved.
"CLASSICAL NEW JERSEY, 10/3/02,Paul Sommers
"Maryland's Deep Creek Festival"

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Guest Conductor Transfigures Night.
""If conducting is about clarity and showing a composer's design, David Wroe is your man. He guided Symphony Nova Scotia through the expressionist tangle of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht with a sure hand and high sense of musical drama." .Wroe, conducting from memory, clearly understood the significance of every single gesture in the music and how to indicate that to the musicians in the fraction of a second before they had to play it. His control of musical light and shadow, rhythmic energy, pace and drama in this extraordinary music clarified the design and expressed it with impressive power." .another demonstration of Wroe's penchant for clarity, energy and drama in Haydn's London Symphony. Wroe freshness up the old masters. He conducts the layers of the music and you hear what you never heard before.
"NOVA SCOTIA CHRONICLE-HERALD, 3/27/02, Stephen Pedersen"

"Westfield Symphony conductor summons larger-than-life sound
"There are ways of conducting that can make a large orchestra sound small and tightly drawn toward its center. And then there's David Wroe's way with the Westfield Symphony Orchestra, which is to make this small orchestra seem to expand outward to sound twice as big as it is. Such was the case Saturday night, when the orchestra, in its second concert of Wroe's third season as music director, played Sibelius' Second Symphony and Dvorak's Cello Concerto with an asperity and expansiveness that more than filled the medium-sized sanctuary of the Presbyterian Church in Westfield. Wroe has taken control of this group with a great deal of authority and a detailed plan for its aural development. In the Sibelius, arguably a textbook example of the orchestral climax, Wroe led the ensemble through a forest of fortes, each louder than the last. " .Wroe has trained this orchestra to play crisply and confidently, but his more endearing trait as conductor is the instinctive way he feels tempo changes and transitions. This made Dvorak's Cello Concerto, with guest soloist Hai-Ye Ni, feel liquid and shifting and naturally expressive. ...Wroe knows how to have fun with his musicians, too....There's a bit of the show-off principle at work here. When you only give five concerts a year, you have to make each one count, and Wroe, with his flamboyant podium style, is certainly delivering on that count."
"NEWARK STAR-LEDGER, 11/23/99, Willa Conrad."

"Abduction of the Seralgio - Heidelberg
" At the podium, David Wroe showed a sure feeling for the energy and the forward motion in the score. Especially noteworthy was the constant delicacy between the orchestra pit and the stage. He conducted with many toned colors, rhythmic precision, and 'bravore'. A thoroughly musically pleasing Mozart evening.
"MANNHEIMER MORGAN (Germany), 11/23/98"

" Westfield Symphony thriving under leadership of Wroe
"It is time to take the WSO seriously .Wroe is turning into one of the State's treasures, a master of orchestral texture whose outgoing personality and solid skills have raised morale amongst players and audience alike "
"NEWARK STAR-LEDGER, 10/5/98, Peter Spencer."

" J. C. Bach's Amadis, with temperament and precision in Heidelberg.
" Under the rousing leadership of David Wroe, the orchestra delivered the score with temperament and exactitude - as though they were the legendary Mannheim Orchestra of the 18th Century. The energy center of this performance came from the pit .
"FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE, 12/19/97"

"Symphony unfolded a night of creation, re-creation.
"Several new stars joined the firmament Thursday night as the Eugene Symphony treated it's audience to a wonderful guest conductor .Wroe sculpted an absolutely spellbinding performance of this huge, glorious haunch of a tone poem [The Planets]... Wroe is a fascinating conductor. He is elegant, witty, and was totally in charge of the orchestra ... lifted and swept the musicians to an ethereal reading that radiated the energy right off the stage....
"REGISTER-GUARD (EUGENE), 2/17/96,Karen Kannenerar."

"Conductor Wroe draws best from Symphony.
"Saturday afternoon, under the baton of guest conductor David Wroe, the Florida West Coast Symphony rose to undreamed-of heights...I believe the excitement was engendered by Wroe's impassioned exhortations to the musicians, expressed in his body language and compelling gestures. so when "Leonore" began it was immediately sharply focused. The conductor's close involvement with each section produced a clearly detailed performance where nothing was blurred or thickened ... The audience cheered, the curtain calls were prolonged, the thrill remained long after the concert ended.
SARASOTA HERALD TRIBUNE, 1/17/96,Florence Fisher"

"KC Camerata's performance is delightful. Wroe shines in concert of diverse pieces.
""... David Wroe, the chamber orchestra's Music Director, just gets better and better. Always a conductor of enormous energy, he showed in Ravel's "Mother Goose" Suite just how exquisitely he can focus and control that energy. It's hard to imagine a more lovingly played account of this wonder-filled score: delicately tinted, finely detailed, with just the right "give" in all the right places. [Haydn, Symphony #100]. Wroe is a born Haydn conductor, meeting balancing plein-air propulsiveness with wit and charm it certainly was exhilarating."
"KANSAS CITY STAR, 12/6/94,Scott Cantrell"

"Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor, soloist delight thousands at Tanglewood.
""Maestro Wroe, the assistant conductor of the BSO , has clear-cut ideas of what he wants. A finely tuned conducting style, imbued with electrifying energy, creates an aura of absolute security. There are no loose ends. Wroe details every nuance, managed to avoid being overly fussy. The results were stunning . The BSO was nothing short of stupendous as they responded to Wroe's demands of highly accelerated tempi, relaxing just enough between rushes, to create a feeling of breathless grandeur."
"ALBANY TIMES, 8/8/94,Peter Haley"

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Staff

David Wroe, Music Director (email: wroede@aol.com, )
Elizabeth Ryan, Executive Director 
Barbara Timko, Operations Manager (email: btimko@westfieldsymphony.org)
Vincent Carano, Orchestra Contractor
Hugh Sinclair, Stage Manager

Board of Trustees
 
President
Mark L. Fleder
 
Treasurer
Alan D. Smith
 
Past President
Norman L. Luka, MD
 
Charter President
Ann Allen
 
Byron Arison
Gaile Boothe
Deborah Burslem
Edward Castorina
David A. Crenshaw
James T. Dettre
Samuel W. Griggs
Irene Jacoby
Theresa de Leon
Sy  Mayerson
B. Carol Molnar
William Neill
Arlene Peterson
Nancy L. Rowe
Trudy Silverman
 
Carole Leone, President, Friends  
   of the Westfield Symphony
 
Honorary Trustees
Angelo Badalamenti
The Hon. Jon M. Bramnick,  
   State Assemblyman
Keith S. Hertell
The Hon. Thomas H. Kean,  
   Former Governor
The Hon. Thomas H. Kean, Jr.,
   State Senator

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Westfield Symphony Orchestra

Orchestra Musicians

Violin 1
Anton Miller
Yukie Handa
Alice Poulson
Denise Stillwell
Evelyn Estava
Chi-Young Hwang
Annelie Fahlstedt
Michael Stratechuk

Violin 2
Byung-Kook Kwak
Victoria Stewart
Lori Miller
Alissa Hendrickson-Madsen
Lisa Batchelder
Diane Montalbine
Michelle Michaelis
Susan Maren

Viola
Veronica Salas
Ronald Lawrence
Ruth Kahn-Siderman
Ruth Brons
Laura Mount
Michael Avagliano

Cello
Eliot Bailen
Gerall Hieser
Joseph Kimura
Daryl Goldberg
Ted Hoyle
David Bakjamian
Leo Grinhauz

Bass
Vincent Carano
Anthony Scelba
John Babich

Flute
Judith Mendenhall
Svjetlana Kabalin

Oboe
Richard Foley
James Wilson

Clarinet
William Shadel
Dorothy Duncan

Bassoon
James Jeter
Wendy Large

French Horn
Patrick Milando
Theresa MacDonnell
Janet Lantz

Trumpet
Donald Batchelder
Brad Siroky

Trombone
Larry Witmer
Gary Capetandes
Jeffrey Caswell

Tuba
Scott Mendoka
Kyle Turner

Harp
Barbara Biggers

Timpani & Percussion
Barry Centanni
Thomas Mulvaney
Jeffrey Irving

Orchestra Contractor
Vincent Carano
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Friends of the Westfield Symphony
Carole Leone, President
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COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE:
Zhou Long

The Westfield Symphony Orchestra, through the generous support from Meet the Composer, the American Symphony Orchestra League and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, warmly welcomes Zhou Long as our Composer in Residence for the 2006-7 season. This collaboration marks a milestone, both in its magnitude, and in our commitment to living composers and music of the future. Zhou Long’s multi-week residency will include a commission to write a new work demonstrating a cross-fertilization of Western and Asian musical traditions, as well as numerous outreach and educational projects with a mandate of ‘ambassador’ for live, professional orchestral music. y
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