The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
was founded in 1935 and makes its home in Kleinhans Music Hall, a National Historic Landmark with an international reputation as one of the greatest concert halls in the United States. Through the decades the orchestra has grown in stature under a number of distinguished conductors including William Steinberg, Josef Krips, Lukas Foss, Michael Tilson Thomas, Julius Rudel, Semyon Bychkov, and Maximiano Valdés. As Buffalo’s cultural ambassador, the BPO has performed across the United States, Canada and Europe, including concerts at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, San Francisco’s Davies Hall and 22 appearances in Carnegie Hall. The orchestra’s European tour included two sold-out performances in Vienna’s Musikverein, and concerts in Milan, Geneva, Zurich and Frankfurt, among other venues. The BPO performs 120 concerts annually and is heard by millions on radio broadcasts across the United States and beyond on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

JoAnn Falletta
serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Virginia Symphony in the United States and Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland. She has guest conducted over a hundred orchestras in North America, and many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa and is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center of North Carolina. Recipient of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, winner of the Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter conducting awards, Falletta has also received eleven ASCAP awards and serves on the U.S. National Council on the Arts. A champion of American music, she has presented nearly five hundred works by American composers including over one hundred world premières. Her Naxos recordings include the double GRAMMY® Award winning disc of works by John Corigliano and GRAMMY® nominated discs of works of Tyberg, Dohnányi, Fuchs, Schubert, and Respighi.