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Gage fills in for injured conductor
YSU prof excited by opportunity
He has been a conductor for 30 years.
YOUNGSTOWN — When the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra found itself without a conductor for its Celtic Holiday pops concert Saturday, its leaders knew just who to turn to: Stephen L. Gage.
Elizabeth Schulze, music director of the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra, was to be the guest conductor of the concert. But she broke her wrist in an automobile accident and had to cancel.
That’s when Patricia Syak, director of the symphony society, and Randall Craig Fleischer, music director of the YSO, put their heads together and decided to tap Gage as a fill-in.
Gage, who conducts the YSO Youth Orchestra, as well as the Dana Symphony Orchestra, was happy to step in.
“I don’t like the circumstances, of course, but I’m excited about it,” he told The Vindicator.
Also a performer
Gage has played in the Youngstown Symphony as a percussionist from time to time, but not recently. He actually conducted the YSO once before, but it was more than a decade ago, during the tenure of music director David Effron.
Saturday’s YSO concert will feature Leahy, the eight-person Canadian sibling act, as guest artists. It’s a twist that should pose no problem for the experienced Gage.
“Any time you have a guest artist, it’s a symbiotic relationship,” said Gage. He outlined Saturday’s concert.
“The symphony will open and do three pieces,” he said. “Then Leahy will come on and be joined by the symphony’s string section. The symphony will come back and close out the first part of the concert and return to open the second half. Then Leahy will join the symphony. We will close together.”
Gage has been listening to Leahy in recent days and is quite impressed. “It’s a high-energy show, and they are real good,” he said. “They are major artists, composers, musicians and arrangers ... and they have a step dancer. They do a lot of [collaborative performance] with orchestras in the United States and Europe.”
Leahy and the YSO will rehearse together one time before Saturday’s concert. “It’s all you need,” said Gage. “The symphony’s musicians are terrific.”
Gage has served as instrumental music coordinator, professor of music, and director of bands at Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music since 1993.
He is in his 16th season as conductor of the Youngstown Symphony Youth Orchestra, and is also the principal guest conductor of the Packard Concert Band in Warren.
Gage began serving as assistant conductor of YSU’s Dana Symphony Orchestra in 2006, and became conductor this season.
He has been a conductor for 30 years, and has written numerous publications on conducting, rehearsal techniques, and wind band literature, and he is a wind band and orchestral guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator of international repute.
He has been inducted into the American Bandmasters and was named a distinguished professor at YSU.
He and the YSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble made their Carnegie Hall debut in 2005 and the group has produced six CD recordings, including “Urban Requiem,” which was released in June.