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The Oakland Youth Orchestra Appoints Omid Zoufonoun as New Principal Conductor

By: Apr. 29, 2014
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Oakland East Bay Symphony Music Director and Oakland Youth Orchestra Artistic Director Michael Morgan has announced the appointment of conductor, composer and educator Omid Zoufonoun as new Principal Conductor of the Oakland Youth Orchestra. Mr. Zoufonoun takes the podium after Maestro Morgan and Bryan Nies have shared conducting duties for the Youth Orchestra's 2013-2014 50th anniversary season. For more information about Oakland Youth Orchestra, visit www.oyo.org .

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"Omid Zoufonoun has long been a treasured member of the Oakland East Bay Symphony family," says Maestro Morgan. "His gifts as composer are already known to our audience. What they have not seen is his great rapport with the youth orchestra students and the extraordinary musicianship that is on display when he conducts them. His imagination, humor and gift for communication will serve the entire organization extremely well and I very much look forward to working with him in this new capacity."

Omid Zoufonoun is a conductor, guitarist, educator and award-winning composer. His compositions blend his Persian musical heritage, learned under the guidance of his father Ostad Mahmoud Zoufonoun, with western practices of counterpoint, harmony and orchestration. Recent commissions include a Cello Sonata for the duet Martha & Monica, a guitar octet for the Guitar Foundation of America, a choral setting of four Rumi poems for the Pacific Mozart Ensemble, and a four-movement orchestral work for the Oakland Youth Orchestra. Maestro Zoufonoun conducted the premiere of this latter work at the Scottish Rite Temple in Oakland, and a professional premiere followed by the Oakland East Bay Symphony under the direction of Maestro Michael Morgan in 2012 on the Symphony's acclaimed Notes from Persia program. As a conductor, his recent recording of Bill Horvitz' suite, A Long Walk, was featured as an Editor's Pick in Downbeat magazine. A Passionate educator and advocate for public arts education, he teaches orchestral studies, chamber music, guitar, composition and AP music theory at Oakland School for the Arts.

Details about the Oakland Youth Orchestra 2014-2015 season will be announced mid-summer and auditions will be held in early June.



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