“Due to unavoidable scheduling conflicts, the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance will postpone its May 7 press event, which announces the next Music and Artistic Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra,” said Brittany Laughlin, vice president of marketing and audience development for Dayton Performing Arts Alliance in an email to subscribers and supporters. “Please stay tuned for a follow-up invitation with updated event details.”
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Neal Gittleman has served as DPO artistic director and conductor since 1995. In addition to broadening the DPO repertoire with more 20th century compositions, he has introduced a number of world, American and Dayton Philharmonic premieres and has expanded performance collaboration within the Dayton arts community, including the Stained Glass Series/Norma Ross Memorial Community Concerts.
In May 2022, the DPAA announced Gittleman charted a five-year course for his retirement from the philharmonic in 2027. Gittleman will have been director for 32 years at the end of the five years. In a press statement, he ensured a “smooth and orderly transition.”
“Although I am not quite ready to hang up my baton, I understand how critical it is to have succession planning in place within our performing arts organization,” Gittleman said at the time. “I love my job, I love the amazing artists with whom I have the privilege to work, and I love the dedicated team of staff, supporters, and audience members who make it possible for me to do this work that I love every day. I’d prefer to retire from conducting the orchestra a little too soon than one second too late. I’ve always tried to do this job at 100% commitment, and I don’t ever want to be in a position—physically or emotionally—where I feel that can’t do that.”
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Gittleman graduated from Yale University in 1975. He continued his musical studies with the eminent teachers Nadia Boulanger and Annette Dieudonné in Paris, Hugh Ross at the Manhattan School of Music and Charles Bruck at both the Pierre Monteux Domaine School and the Hartt School of Music, where he was the recipient of the Karl Böhm Fellowship. In 1984, he was the Second Prize Winner of Geneva’s Ernest Ansermet International Conducting Competition, and, two years later, he was awarded Third Prize at the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition in New York City. In 1989, he was selected for the American Conductors Program at the American Symphony Orchestra League’s annual conference in San Francisco.
In May 2014, he was awarded a 2014 Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio for Community Development and Participation. Under his direction, the Dayton Philharmonic has received the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music nine times.
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