Dean Whiteside, conductor

Dean Whiteside was born in New York City and trained in Vienna at the University of Music and Performing Arts. He is in his third season as the New World Symphony’s Conducting Fellow, where he leads a variety of performances and serves as assistant to Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Mr. Whiteside is founder and director of the Nashville Sinfonietta, hailed by The Tennessean as “a virtuoso band.” He opened the Blair School of Music’s 2013-14 season directing a multimedia realization of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross called “innovative” by The Tennessean and “deeply meditative and satisfyingly original” by ArtsNash. 

Mr. Whiteside’s European debut came in 2011 after winning the Jorma Panula Blue Danube Masterclass and Competition. He has conducted orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, Orlando Philharmonic, Polish Baltic Philharmonic, Sibiu Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Tokyo Philharmonic, Wiener Kammerorchester and Zagreb Philharmonic, as well as the Vanderbilt Orchestra on a five-city tour of China. He has served as Cover Conductor to the Dallas Symphony and San Francisco Symphony.

Mr. Whiteside is the winner of the American Prize in Conducting and received second prize and the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra Award at the Sixth International Competition of Young Conductors Lovro von Matačić. Other awards include the 2017 Mahler Conducting Fellowship, Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Conducting Scholarship, Croatian Composers' Society Award, David Effron Conducting Fellowship, Bayreuth Festival Scholarship and David Rabin Performance Prize. He has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and Castleton Festival.

Mr. Whiteside has worked closely with such conductors as Bertrand de Billy, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Jun Märkl, Kurt Masur, Jorma Panula, Leonard Slatkin and Robert Spano. He began his conducting studies with Robin Fountain at Vanderbilt University.

Sam Hyken, composer

Sam Hyken has had a rich and diverse musical career, which has spanned the globe. Currently residing in Miami, Florida, he is in constant demand as a performer, producer and composer. Along with Jacomo Bairos, he is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Nu Deco Ensemble, Miami's Genre-Bending Orchestra. He also serves as CEO of the organization.

As a composer, Mr. Hyken's music has been commissioned by several symphony orchestras, such as the New World Symphony, National Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony, Asheville Symphony and Miami Symphony. Other ensembles who have performed his work include the San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Charleston Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Amarillo Symphony, Phoenix Symphony and Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolivar of Venezuela. From 2011-15,  he was Composer-in-Residence with the Miami Symphony.

As a musical arranger and director, Mr. Hyken has been contracted by various artists, producers and ensembles to adapt and write new music, including Talib Kweli, Ben Folds, Pitbull, Bilal, Kishi Bashi, Monsieur Perine, Dirty Vegas, Magda Giannikou, Danay Suarez, Steven A. Clark, Brika, Tiara Thomas, Rico Love, Raquel Sofia, Leroy Sanchez, Jim Jonsin, Spam Allstars, Res, Afrobeta,Carmen Lundy, Jessie Murphy (of the Brazilian Girls), Glen Matlock (of the Sex Pistols) and the eclectic group ProjectTrio. He has also been commissioned by the Kansas City-based group Quixotic Fusion to write and arrange music for their debut performance of Symphonic Quixotic. Mr. Hyken has served as music director for The White Party 2014, events for Ferrari and FIFA, Art Basel at the W Hotel, New Years Eve at the Setai Hotel, as well many events of the Friends of the New World Symphony. He was also musical director and arranger for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's 1000th Random Act of Culture, featuring over 200 performers of multiple genres and mediums. 

Mr. Hyken has been engaged as a trumpet soloist and orchestral musician since 1999. In 2004 he was appointed Associate Principal Trumpet of the Singapore Symphony, a position that he held for two years. From 2006-09, he was a member of the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. He was a member of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra and the UBS Verbier Chamber Orchestra for five years touring and performing with such esteemed conductors as James Levine, Loren Maazel, Valerie Gergiev, Kurt Masur, Yuri Temirakanov, Christoph Donyani and Charles Dutoit. Mr. Hyken has also worked and performed with many Grammy Award-winning Artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea, Belle and Sebastian, Arturo Sandoval, Jose Feliciano and Jose Carreras. He has also performed with ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, Canadian Brass, American Brass Quintet and the London Symphony Orchestra Brass. 

Mr. Hyken has been a conductor, teacher, performer, music arranger and scriptwriter for the Miami Music Project, which is a musical organization focusing on using music to promote social change. He has been on faculty at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where he taught Pop Music Composition, Virtual Orchestration and Ear Training. He holds a bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School, a post-graduate diploma with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London and a master's degree in Media Writing and Production from the University of Miami.