ARTISTIC STAFF

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR

Mark Mandarano enjoys an international career as a conductor that has included performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and other important venues in the United States and abroad.

He has premiered new works with the New York City Opera, served as principal guest conductor of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, and has twice been invited by the U.S. State Department to act as a cultural ambassador to Russia, performing the music of Gershwin and Bernstein, with concerts in numerous cities including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

An advocate of the music of living composers, he has conducted works by Karel Husa, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, John Corigliano, Ellen Zwilich, Melinda Wagner, David Bruce, Nico Muhly, and others. About his recent CD for Albany Records, Fanfare Magazine has written: “The Mandarano recording is at the top of comparable recordings. Mandarano’s account excels in transparency, detail, and incisiveness…liveliness and verve, with its singing line and unimpeded forward movement.” He has other releases on Arabesque and Bridge Records.

He has conducted performances with the Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, and has worked with such conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Vänskä, Antonio Pappano, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Valery Gergiev, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Leonard Slatkin. Mandarano is the Artistic Director of the Sinfonietta of Riverdale, and has been the Director of the Macalester Symphony Orchestra since 2012. In 2021, he commissioned new works for the Macalester Orchestra intended for asynchronous performance—the subsequent video of these 5 Pandemic World Premieres has received more than 60,000 views on YouTube. He was named Artistic Director of the Minnesota Youth Symphonies in 2022.