Markand Thakar, music director of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, has earned a wide reputation for orchestra building and innovative programming. He was cited by SYMPHONY magazine for "creative programming and rising artistic standards [that] fill the house," by New Yorker critic Alex Ross, who says, "On the subject of brilliant programming see this season's programs by the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra," and by the Baltimore Sun, which praises his "novel programming concepts" for the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and "one of the most successful examples of thematic programming heard around here in some time.”

Thakar first came to national attention in 1997 when he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, stepping in for Leonard Slatkin on short notice and with no rehearsal. He returned to the podium that summer, opening the Philharmonic's outdoor season with concerts in Central Park and the boroughs. Appearances in recent seasons include additional concerts and a national radio broadcast with the New York Philharmonic, and concerts with the National, San Antonio, Columbus, Alabama, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Charlotte, Knoxville, Richmond, Colorado Springs, Greensboro, Illinois, Kalamazoo, Windsor, Flint, Maryland, Ann Arbor, Waterbury, Annapolis, and Florida West Coast symphony orchestras; the Calgary and Long Island philharmonics; and the Boston Pro Arte, National and Cleveland chamber orchestras. A frequent guest conductor at the Aspen Music Festival, Mr. Thakar has appeared with Yo-Yo Ma and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and with Itzhak Perlman and the Boulder Philharmonic, and is a winner of the Geraldine C. and Emory M. Ford Foundation Award. Familiar to national radio audiences as a frequent commentator for National Public Radio's Performance Today, he has appeared on CBS This Morning and CNN conducting the Colorado Symphony.

Formerly associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the Eugene Symphony's “NightMusic” pops series, Mr. Thakar was music director and conductor of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra in New York City, the Barnard-Columbia Philharmonia, the Classical Symphony of Cincinnati, the Penn's Woods Philharmonia, and the National Festival Orchestra of the Great Lakes Festival of Musical Arts.

Thakar was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for study of orchestral conducting in Europe, and is a past winner of the national Exxon Conductors Program auditions. He earned a bachelor's degree in composition and violin perfor¬mance from The Juilliard School, a master's degree in music theory from Columbia University, and a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory, and he undertook special studies in orchestral conducting at the Curtis Institute and the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in Bucharest, Romania. Other conducting studies were with Gustav Meier, Max Rudolf and Peter Perret.

Most significant was his work conducting the Munich Philharmonic under the mentorship of Sergiu Celibidache. “From Celibidache I came to understand that the 'magic moments' that we all experience from time to time can extend - even possibly from the very first sound of a movement through the very last. In such an extended 'magic moment' we experience a remarkable transcendence: we accept the sound, we absorb the sound, we become the sound, and in so doing we transcend everyday consciousness of time and space; we touch our conscious soul in a most remarkable way. My driving interest has been an exploration of the conditions - from the composer, from us performers, and from the listener - that allow this most profoundly exquisite, life-affirming experience.”

Mr. Thakar has lectured on the musical experience at Harvard University, and is the author of Counterpoint: Fundamentals of Music Making (published in English by Yale University Press and in Italian by Rugginenti Editore). The treatise uses species counter-point to promote an understanding of how both composer and performer con¬tribute to the experience of musical beauty. Currently co-director of the Graduate Conducting Program at the Peabody Conservatory with Gustav Meier, he can be visited on-line at: www.markandthakar.com.