Richmond Symphony to Join Forces with Chorus on BERNSTEIN: CHICHESTER PSLAMS, 5/9

Steven Smith is currently celebrating his fifth season as Music Director of the Richmond Symphony and his third season in the Lewis T. Booker Music Director Chair. He continues as Music Director of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony and in 2013 completed a 14 year tenure as Music Director of the Santa Fe Symphony & Chorus.

From 1997 to 2003, Steven Smith served as the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra where he appeared on the subscription series at Severance Hall and Blossom Music

Center. With a strong commitment to arts education, he assisted in the planning and conducting of the Cleveland Orchestra's educational and family concerts and hosted the orchestra's annual broadcast videoconference which won an Emmy Award in 2001. For five seasons, he also served as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra which performed by invitation at Carnegie Hall in 2001. From 2002-05, he was associate professor at Oberlin Conservatory, where he led both orchestral and opera performances.

In April 2013, Steven Smith made his debut with the Virginia Opera conducting their performances of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." Steven Smith has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras such as San Francisco, Milwaukee, Houston, Detroit, Puerto Rico Symphony and the Aspen Music Festival. Abroad, he has performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Zealand's Auckland Philharmonia, Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra and Mexico's Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa. In addition, he has conducted numerous opera and orchestral performances at Indiana University and Brevard Music Center.

Steven Smith is an ASCAP award-winning composer, with commissions from the Cleveland Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Eugene Youth Symphony and solo artists. He was named Ohio Composer of the Year for 2008.

A native of Toledo, Ohio, Steven Smith earned Master's degrees from the Eastman School of

Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is the recipient of the CIM Alumni Association 1999 Alumni Achievement Award and the Geraldine C. and Emory M. Ford Foundation's Conductor Career Development Grant.

Hailed by the press as engaging, elegant, and entertaining, Erin Freeman continues as the Director of the Richmond Symphony Chorus, and in the fall of 2014 joined the faculty of VCUMusic as Director of Choral Activities, a newly created joint position co-sponsored by the Richmond Symphony. This appointment comes on the heels of a successful seven years as the Richmond Symphony's Associate Conductor, and will include overseeing all of the choral ensembles at VCU as well as vocal chamber music, and preparing the 150-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus for all of its performances.

She is also the newly appointed Artistic Director of Wintergreen Performing Arts, where she will lead artistic endeavors of the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival and the associated Wintergreen Summer Music Academy.

As Associate Conductor and Chorus Director of the Richmond Symphony from 2007-2014, Freeman conducted subscription concerts, led the Pops and Lollipops Series, spearheaded the Symphony's education initiatives, including its four youth orchestras, and directed the 150-voice

symphony chorus. She collaborated with soloists such as Jamie Bernstein, Elena Uriosti, Arturo Sandoval, Marietta Simpson, Joseph Conyers, Patti Austin, and Maureen McGovern, and in 2012, Freeman prepared the Richmond Symphony Chorus for an historic performance and recording of Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Virginia Symphony, under the direction of JoAnn Falletta.

A frequent guest conductor throughout the country, Freeman maintains an association with the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, for whom she has served as Music Director, and with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, where she has been a frequent guest conductor. This year, she will conduct the BPO and BPC in their popular Classical Christmas program. She has also been a Guest Conductor for the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Savannah Symphony, the Richmond Ballet, and other ensembles in Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, and Illinois. And, in summer 2015, she will conduct Dvorak's Stabat Mater at the Berkshire Choral Festival.

Passionate about making classical music accessible to all, Freeman has led programs from the Richmond Symphony's ground breaking Come and Play, resulting in a community orchestra of

over 650, to Celebrity Maestro, for which she taught conducting lessons to such notables as Miss America Caressa Cameron and Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones. She has served as Director of Orchestras at Baltimore School for the Arts and American University, Conductor at Northwestern University's National High School Music Institute, Lecturer for the National Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony, Music Director of the Richmond Philharmonic, and Resident Conductor at Peabody Conservatory. She has instructed national seminars for the Conductor's Guild, and serves on their board of directors as Vice President.

Winner of numerous awards, including the Women's Philharmonic Conducting
Scholarship, Freeman was selected by Virginia Lawyer's Weekly as one of Virginia's 50 most influential women. With degrees from Northwestern University, Boston University, and Peabody Conservatory, she has studied and performed in masterclasses with Gustav Meier, Victor Yampolsky, Markand Thakar, Helmuth Rilling, Murry Sidlin, and Robert Shaw.