Guest conductor to lead orchestra

THE VINDICATOR

Guest conductor Gisele Ben-Dor will lead the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra in Saturday’s concert. The program will consist of Strauss, Brahms and Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major.

Ben-Dor, a master conductor of the classics, has been described by The Los Angeles Times as “a star on the rise” and “a ferocious talent.”

Born and raised in Uruguay of Polish parents, Ben-Dor is also known as a persuasive champion of Latin American music — notably the works of Ginastera, Revueltas, Piazzolla and the less well-known Luis Bacalov.

Ben-Dor studied at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv and the Yale School of Music before coming to the United States. She holds the position of conductor emerita of the Boston Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra, a post to which she was elected exclusively by the musicians.

Her talent was also recognized by Leonard Bernstein, with whom she shared the stage at Tanglewood and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Ben-Dor, who has toured extensively in Eastern Europe, made her conducting debut with the Israel Philharmonic in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

In 2006, Ben-Dor was named conductor laureate of the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Symphony. 

In 2000, she organized the groundbreaking Revueltas Festival, which elicited high praise worldwide for its imaginative approach and commitment to the cause of the composer. She followed it up in 2004 by creating the Tango and Malambo Festival, which included a wide-ranging program of concerts, dance and film celebrating the tango and its less familiar cousin, the malambo.

Ben-Dor and the Santa Barbara Symphony have put out three CDs — the first commercial recordings in the Symphony’s history — all of which contained world premiere recordings of works by Latin American composers.