Courtney Lewis Named Assistant Conductor of New York Philharmonic's 2014-15 Season

Courtney Lewis, age 29, has been named New York Philharmonic Assistant Conductor beginning in September 2014. Current Assistant Conductor Case Scaglione, age 31, will be promoted to Associate Conductor, also to begin in September 2014. They will assist Music Director Alan Gilbert and all guest conductors throughout the season, and will lead educational events, including School Day Concerts and Young People's Concerts. Joshua Weilerstein, who has been Assistant Conductor along with Mr. Scaglione since September 2011, will conclude his tenure as Assistant Conductor at the end of the 2013-14 season.

Courtney Lewis will lead the Young People's Concerts on November 15, 2014 (Super Sonic Music Box: "Melody Transformed") and February 21, 2015 (Super Sonic Music Box: "Story Transformed") and the School Day Concerts - which are open only to school groups, grades 3- 12 - on March 4-6, 2015.

Case Scaglione will conduct the Orchestra in Glazunov's Violin Concerto, with Joshua Bell as soloist; Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 in his first complete subscription program, November 12-15 and 18, 2014. He will also conduct the Young People's Concert on January 24, 2014 (Super Sonic Music Box: "Orchestra Transformed"). Since his appointment as Assistant Conductor in September 2011, Mr. Scaglione has conducted the New York Philharmonic in Young People's Concerts and School Day Concerts, as well as Stravinsky's Ragtime and Shostakovich's Tahiti Trot to open a subscription program that he shared with Alan Gilbert as conductor, in May-June 2013.

"We discovered Courtney Lewis after an extensive audition process, and he emerged as a very promising future colleague as our next Assistant Conductor," said Music Director Alan Gilbert. "Case Scaglione has proven to be a brilliant and helpful partner since he became Assistant Conductor in 2011 - through his conducting the Orchestra in Young People's Concerts and on subscription, as well as by being a behind-the-scenes collaborator throughout the year and on tour. It was a natural decision to appoint him as our Associate Conductor. I am looking forward to their contributions to the New York Philharmonic."

Since 2009, Courtney Lewis has served as associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, where he made his subscription debut with a fully staged production of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel during the 2011-12 season. He has also served as a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; he made his debut there in the fall of 2011 and returned for additional performances in spring 2012. A passionate advocate of music education, Mr. Lewis is the founder and music director of Boston's Discovery Ensemble, a chamber orchestra dedicated not only to giving concerts of contemporary and established repertoire at the highest level of musical and technical excellence, but also to bringing live music into the least privileged parts of Boston with workshops in local schools. He made his major American orchestral debut in November 2008 with the St. Louis Symphony, and has since appeared with the Atlanta Symphony, Washington National Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Alabama Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, RTE? National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and Ulster Orchestra (for a series of BBC Radio 3 Invitation Concerts, as well as on subscription). Recent and upcoming engagements include debuts with the Vancouver Symphony, Lausanne Chamber, Edmonton Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and Memphis Symphony orchestras, as well as returns to the Minnesota Orchestra, Alabama Symphony, and RTE? National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Courtney Lewis graduated from the University of Cambridge where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and clarinet with Dame Thea King. After completing a master's degree with a focus on the late music of Gyo?rgy Ligeti, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Mark Elder and Clark Rundell.

American conductor Case Scaglione began his tenure as Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic in September 2011, the same year he received the Conductor's Prize by the Solti Foundation U.S. He made his Philharmonic subscription debut in November 2012, stepping in for Kurt Masur to lead the opening work on a concert, and in May-June 2013 he led the Orchestra in two works on a program also conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert. The 2014- 15 season sees his promotion to Associate Conductor, a position revived especially for him by Alan Gilbert, and he will lead a complete subscription program in November 2014, with violinist Joshua Bell as soloist. He has appeared as a guest conductor with The Cleveland Orchestra and the St. Louis, Baltimore, Houston, and Jacksonville symphony orchestras, among others. During the 2013-14 season, Mr. Scaglione makes debuts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Colorado and Santa Fe Symphony Orchestras, and Orchestra of St. Luke's; returns to the Alabama Symphony, Las Vegas Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra; and conducts Bach's Mass in B minor with Madrid's Orquesta Cla?sica Santa Cecilia. In September 2013 he assisted Andrew Davis on Richard Strauss's Elektra at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. As music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles, 2008-11, Mr. Scaglione helped develop the continued artistic growth and diversification of the organization and founded 360° Music, which took that orchestra to inner- city schools. His programs ranged from Wagner to Ligeti and included the orchestra's first staged opera in almost 60 years and the Los Angeles Premiere of John Adams's Doctor Atomic Symphony, supported by the National Endowment of the Arts. He was a student of David Zinman at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, where he won the James Conlon and Aspen Conducting Prizes, leading to his Cleveland Orchestra debut in 2010. He then served as assistant conductor of the Aspen Music Festival and School. In 2011 Mr. Scaglione was one of three conducting fellows at Tanglewood, chosen by James Levine and Stefan Asbury. The Texas native received his bachelor's degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and conducted post-graduate work at the Peabody Institute, studying with Gustav Meier. Mr. Scaglione made his New York Philharmonic debut leading a Young People's Concert in November 2011; his most recent appearance was the Young People's Concert Points of Entry: Mozart's Symphony No. 41, Jupiter, in December 2013.

Pictured: Courtney Lewis and Case Scaglione. Photos by Travis Anderson (Lewis) and Christian Steiner (Scaglione).