5 – 14 July 2024

Conductor Michael Repper’s work spans five continents. In 2023, he became the youngest North American conductor to win a Grammy® Award in Best Orchestral Performance. He has an international reputation for engaging and exciting audiences of all spectrums, and for promoting new and diverse musical talents.

Repper is currently the Music Director of the Ashland Symphony Orchestra, Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, and the Northern Neck Orchestra of Virginia.  He recently concluded tenures as Music Director of the New York Youth Symphony, and as Principal Conductor of Sinfonía por el Perú, the elite youth orchestras and choruses of one of South America's most versatile social impact music programs. Repper was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conducting Fellow for two seasons, and he served as the BSO's New Music Consultant. Recognizing his success at these ensembles, and his growing profile as a guest conductor all over the world, Repper was awarded a Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

His album with the New York Youth Symphony, which features debut recordings of works by Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, and Valerie Coleman, achieved widespread critical acclaim, reached #1 on the Billboard Chart, and won a Grammy® Award, marking the first time a youth orchestra achieved this milestone.

Repper has collaborated on large-scale productions of symphonic and theatrical works with the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia Festival, Peabody Institute of Music, and the New School of Music, among others. An avid pianist, he regularly performs as a soloist alongside his orchestras and choruses, and as an orchestral player as well. Recently, he played in the Chicago Symphony for their performances of Bernstein’s Mass, which was broadcast on PBS Great Performances. ​

​Alongside the standard repertoire, Repper is especially invested in programming new music and showcasing fresh talent. His ensembles have performed dozens of world premieres and pursued innovative commissions, as well as a variety of Carnegie Hall premieres from established and emerging composers.  A trusted ear, Repper is asked to assist and cover at orchestras nationwide, including the St. Louis Symphony, the Van Cliburn Competition, and for Naxos recordings with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.

His experience with choruses has been recognized with significant positions, including his tenure as the Music Director at the Baltimore Basilica, the first Catholic Cathedral in the United States. Internationally, Repper has performed with highly regarded ensembles and in the world’s greatest venues, including the São Paulo Symphony, and at the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, Carnegie Hall, and others.

His discography includes the aforementioned album of music with the New York Youth Symphony, alongside an album with the Grammy®-Nominated Metropolis Ensemble and Grammy®-Winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus ("Musical America"), and several with the Peabody Institute as an Assistant Conductor. With the New York Youth Symphony during the Coronavirus pandemic, he was one of the first to pioneer the practice of distanced orchestral performance videos, and he made two performance appearances on CNN, the final one with Platinum-Artist Billy Ray Cyrus.

Repper complements his work with professional orchestras with a firm commitment to education, and travels worldwide to work with ensembles of young musicians. As Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Maryland, he ushered in a slate of innovative educational programming, such as the Reinecke Youth Chamber Music Scholarship and Fellowship Program. He has conducted several masterclasses for orchestras from all over the United States on behalf of the New York Philharmonic, and conducts side-by-side and educational concerts with major orchestras, including the Baltimore Symphony and the Colorado Symphony.
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Repper's most influential conducting mentors are Marin Alsop and the late Gustav Meier. He believes that a conductor's main role is to connect people and to use performance as a vehicle for positive change. He aims to promote a diverse and inclusive future for the arts, and to pay forward the passion for community that his mentors demonstrated to him.

Ekaterina was born in Moscow in a family of scientists and athletes. She started playing music at the age of 4. As a child she performed on the historical stage of Bolshoi Theater as a part of children's choir. In 2003 Ekaterina enrolled in Central Music School of P. I. Tchaikovsky, the class of famous flute professor Dolzhikov. Since age 11, Ekaterina has regularly participated in international music festivals in France, Norway, Germany, Israel, Russia, Greece, Austria and Italy, visited master classes of the famous professors in Europe, such as Felix Renggli, Francois Laurent, Vicens Prat, Vincent Luca, Shigenori Kudo, David Formizano, Kersten McCall, Andrea Lieberkneht, Philippe Bernold and Sophie Cherie.

Ekaterina Kornishina shares the stage with no less than Denis Matsuev, Vladimir Spivakov, Alexander Sladkovsky, Christian Schultz, Arkady Shilkloper and many others. At the age of 13 she won the "New Names" competition and got a scholarship of the New Names Foundation. Since then Denis Matsuev has been constantly inviting the young flutist to perform at the festivals "Crecendo" and "Stars on Baikal".
"Ekaterina Kornishina is one of the brightest flutists of the younger generation. Ekaterina is a student of the New Names Foundation and a former student of the great Dolzhikov, a fantastic master of flute artistry. She is a modern, talented, motivated musician destroying the stereotype that a wind instrument player can only make a career in the orchestra by successfully performing solo," — said the renowned pianist.

In 2010 Ekaterina made a debut at the Brahms hall in Vienna with Mozart's concerto and Wiener Concert-Verein orchestra. At the age of 18 after graduating from the Central Music School Ekaterina was invited by Vladimir Spivakov to become a soloist of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. Spivakov also gave her a a great instrument as a gift. In 2016 Ekaterina received Hyundai scholarship for her academic success at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky conservatory. In 2018 Ekaterina finished the Conservatory, class of Professor Alexander Golyshev and enrolls in Reina Sofia Academy in Madrid, class of Jacques Zoon.

Schooled in the European tradition covering conducting, composition, opera and chamber music, Simeone Tartaglione has become a versatile musician with a wide knowledge of and passion for the many areas of this art. He studied composition and conducting in Rome at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory and graduated in piano performance in Sicily at the Vincenzo Bellini Institute. In addition to his various degrees and honors, in 2003 he earned a Laurea as Doctor in Philology (Italian Literature and Musicology) Magna cum Laude, and is a published author.

Tartaglione currently holds a number of positions. At Catholic University in Washington DC he is Associate Professor of Practice, conductor of the orchestra, Head of Conducting and Orchestral Instruments. He serves as Music Director of the Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra, Conductor of the Faculty Orchestra Core Orchestral Department Head at the Music School of Delaware in Wilmington, Conductor of the Symphony at the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras at Strathmore Hall in Bethesda, and Artistic Director and Conductor of Musica Viva Kentlands orchestra. In May of 2010 he became the Music Director of the Newark (DE) Symphony Orchestra, during which time, this orchestra's audience increased by 63%. The orchestra has also enjoyed record increases in donations, advertisers, and press coverage during this time.

Tartaglione has had extensive conducting experience in symphonic and operatic repertoire with orchestras from Italy, the United States, Spain, Russia, Romania, Mexico, Ukraine, and Bulgaria. He has won numerous competitions and prizes including: Allied Arts, Leon Guide, Athanor, ILICA (2015 Man of the Year), Kentlands Foundation, Le Arti, Telamone, Comune di Marcianise, Diamante della Musica, Sykele, Rapisarda, Punto fermo, AMA Calabria and Modica. In Rome he served as the Artistic Director of the Theatre Fusillo and of the MUSA Cultural Association for five years.

After winning an audition at the University of Denver he moved there in 2005.

At the same university he became Adjunct Professor of Conducting while earning an Artist Diploma with Lawrence Golan. Over the next five years he worked as a guest conductor, vocal coach, pianist and harpsichord player with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra's Education and Outreach Programs, Central City Opera, Marilyn Horne Foundation, Denver Young Artists Orchestra, Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra, Augustana Musica Sacra Orchestra, and Broadway Music School. He also served as cover conductor for the Colorado Symphony on a number of occasions.

Invited by Maestro Gustav Meier in 2006, Tartaglione moved to Baltimore where he continued conducting studies at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University earning a Graduate Performing Diploma in 2009 with a conducting assistantship. From 2008 to 2010 he served as Adjunct Faculty for the Peabody Opera Department, coaching and conducting several performances, and most recently served as Music Director for a production of Hansel and Gretel in 2016. In 2009 and 2010, he served as the Music Director of the Be Orchestra, a volunteer group of Peabody and other Baltimore area students and recent graduates that served populations such as the homeless and prisoners. Still in Baltimore he served as conductor of the Chesapeake Chamber Opera conducting several staged productions. Tartaglione also collaborated with Mid-Atlantic Symphony, Peabody Symphony, Peabody Opera, and Hopkins Chorus and on occasions he served as cover and back stage conductor for the Baltimore Opera and the Baltimore Symphony. He recently made his debut with Carmina Burana at a sold out Kennedy Center in Washington DC and at Disney Hall in Los Angeles.  Simeone also conducted, live on CNN, orchestra and chorus for Pope Francis’ last visit in Washington. In November 2019, he conducted Beethoven's 9th Symphony in honor of the 30th Anniversary of The Fall of the Berlin Wall, in the presence of the President of Germany and top United States government officials.

Tartaglione has recorded several CDs and DVDs as conductor and pianist in duo with his wife, well known violinist Alessandra Cuffaro, the first Italian woman who performed all the 24 Paganini's Capricci in one concert. He and Ms. Cuffaro live in Montgomery County with their two young daughters.