“A TAKE-CHARGE MAESTRO WHO INVESTS EVERYTHING HE CONDUCTS WITH DEEP MUSICAL UNDERSTANDING . . .” is a recent review by the Chicago Tribune of Music Director Larry Rachleff. Now celebrating his twelfth season with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Mr. Rachleff is also Director of Orchestras and the Walter Kris Hubert chair at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, and served as Music Director of the San Antonio Symphony.

Mr. Rachleff has appeared as guest conductor with such prestigious orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Houston, Seattle, Indianapolis, Utah and Kansas City Symphony Orchestras and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In 1993, he was selected as one of four American conductors to lead the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall under the mentorship of Maestro Pierre Boulez.

A former faculty member of Oberlin Conservatory, where he served as Music Director of Orchestras and Conductor of the Contemporary Ensemble, he also served as Conductor of the Opera Theatre at the University of Southern California. In 1988, Mr. Rachleff served as Music Director of the highly acclaimed American-Soviet Youth Orchestra tour. He has conducted and presented master classes at the Chopin Academy in Warsaw, the Zurich Hochschule and the Sydney and Queensland, Australia conservatories.

He is in constant demand as a conductor and master class clinician and is frequently invited to lead other conservatory orchestras including the Juilliard School, England’s Royal Northern College and New England Conservatory. He has spent his summers conducting at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Aspen, Tanglewood, Interlochen, Music Academy of the West, Opera Theatre of Lucca, Italy and the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge.

As an enthusiastic advocate of public school music education, Mr. Rachleff has conducted All-State orchestras and festivals in virtually every state in the United States as well as throughout Europe and Canada. He has served as principal conducting teacher for the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Conductors’ Guild and the International Workshop for Conductors in the Czech Republic. He returned there this summer for concerts with the Martinu Philharmonic. As a dedicated advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Rachleff has collaborated with leading composers including Samuel Adler, the late Luciano Berio, George Crumb, Michael Daugherty and John Harbison, to name a few.

Mr. Rachleff and his wife, soprano Susan Lorette Dunn, live in Houston with their young son, Sam.

June 2008.