Mr. Tilson Thomas began his formal studies at the University of Southern California, where he studied piano with John Crown, and conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl. At age 19 he was named Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. During this same period, he was the pianist and conductor in master classes of Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz and worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen and Copland on premieres of their compositions at Los Angeles’ Monday Evening Concerts. 

In 1969, after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood, he was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That year he also made his New York debut with the Boston Symphony and gained international recognition after replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert. He was later appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 1974. He was Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979 and a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985. His guest conducting includes appearances with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.

Mr. Tilson Thomas is a two-time Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist, curating and conducting series at the hall from 2003 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2019. In the most recent series, he led Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America both at the hall and on tour in Asia, opened the Carnegie Hall season over two evenings with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted two programs with the Vienna Philharmonic and finished with a pair of concerts leading the New World Symphony. 

A winner of eleven Grammy Awards, Mr. Tilson Thomas appears on more than 120 recordings. His discography includes The Mahler Project, a collection of the composer’s complete symphonies and works for voice and orchestra performed with the San Francisco Symphony, in addition to pioneering recordings of music by Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Steve Reich, John Cage, Ingolf Dahl, Morton Feldman, George Gershwin, John McLaughlin and Elvis Costello. His recordings span repertoire from Bach and Beethoven to Debussy and Stravinsky, and from Sarah Vaughan to Metallica. 

His television work includes a series with the London Symphony Orchestra for BBC Television, broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts from 1971 to 1977 and numerous productions on PBS’s Great Performances. With the San Francisco Symphony, he created a multi-tiered media project, Keeping Score, which includes a television series, web sites, and radio programs. He received a Peabody Award for his SFS Media radio series The MTT Files. 

Mr. Tilson Thomas’s compositions are published by G. Schirmer. In 1991, he and the New World Symphony were presented in a series of benefit concerts for UNICEF in the United States, featuring Audrey Hepburn as narrator of his work From the Diary of Anne Frank, which was commissioned by UNICEF. This piece has since been translated and performed in many languages worldwide. In August 1995, he led the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in the premiere of his composition Shówa/Shoáh, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. His vocal music includes settings of poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, which were premiered by Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming, respectively. In 2016, Yuja Wang premiered his piano piece You Come Here Often?. 

Mr. Tilson Thomas' song cycle Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind, a setting of Carl Sandburg’s poem, was premiered in 2016 by the New World Symphony, with Measha Brueggergosman as soloist. In 2019 the piece was recorded for Medici.tv at the New World Center and given its New York premiere as part of Mr. Tilson Thomas’s second Carnegie Hall Perspectives series. His first Perspectives series also featured performances of his own compositions, including Island Music for four marimbas and percussion; Notturno for solo flute and strings, featuring soloist Paula Robison; and new settings of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. In 2020, he led the San Francisco Symphony in the world premiere of his six-part song cycle Meditations on Rilke, and he subsequently conducted the work at the Cleveland Orchestra. Additional compositions include Street Song for brass instruments; Agnegram, an overture for orchestra; and Urban Legend, a concerto for contrabassoon that was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony. In June 2020, SFS Media released an album of works composed by Mr. Tilson Thomas, featuring live concert recordings of From the Diary of Anne Frank, narrated by mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, and Meditations on Rilke, sung by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny. 

Mr. Tilson Thomas is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was Musical America’s Musician of the Year and Conductor of the Year, was Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year and has been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes and ABC’s Nightline. He has been awarded the National Medal of Arts, has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a 2019 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. 

 

He has performed with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Gilmore Festival, the New Music Consort and the Pulse Percussion Ensemble. In addition, Mr. Damoulakis is a founding member of the Time Table Percussion Quartet. In 2015 he performed and recorded with the National Brass Ensemble at Skywalker Ranch and Orchestra Hall in Chicago. 

In addition to teaching at CIM, Mr. Damoulakis was on the faculty at DePaul University for seven years. He has led master classes and clinics throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He is committed to a biannual week-long teaching residency at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and is a regular clinician and teacher at the North Western Percussion Symposium, New World Symphony and National Youth Orchestra. Additionally, he is a judge of the annual Modern Snare Drum Competition. His students hold positions in major symphony orchestras throughout the world. 

Prior to coming to Cleveland, Mr. Damoulakis resided in New York for three years, where he performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel (2003-06), served as Principal Timpanist of the Long Island Philharmonic (1998-2006) and held the position of Assistant Principal Percussionist of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra (2003-06). He performed as an active freelancer in New York playing on Broadway in Phantom of the Opera. 

As a collaborative three-year project, Mr. Damoulakis developed the K symphonic line of cymbals with the Zildjian Cymbal Company, instruments that are an important part of his sound collection with The Cleveland Orchestra.  

A native of Boston, Mr. Damoulakis was exposed to music at a young age by his parents who were both educators and musicians, in piano and tuba respectively. He spent four summers at Tanglewood, in addition attending the festivals of Spoleto and Pacific Music Festival. He holds an undergraduate bachelor of arts degree in percussion performance from the Manhattan School of Music, studying under Chris Lamb (New York Philharmonic), Duncan Patton (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra) and the late James Preiss (The Steve Reich Ensemble.) Mr. Damoulakis continued his studies at the New World Symphony, under MTT, for four years (1999-2003.) He and his wife Samantha currently reside in Cleveland Heights with their son, George, daughter Helen, and their dog, Rocky. 

 

Mr. Decker was a 2011 fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and spent two summers at the Music Academy of the West and Round Top Festival. He was also a student at the Eastern Music Festival under Gerard Schwarz, where he joined the faculty in the summer of 2016. 

 Mr. Decker studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Christopher Lamb, Duncan Patton and She-e Wu. He also attended Roosevelt University, where he studied with Vadim Karpinos and Ed Harrison.  A native of Seymour, Indiana, he began his musical training with Paul Berns of the Indianapolis Symphony. 

A winner of the 2010 Kerope Zildjian Scholarship and a finalist in the 2009 Atlanta Snare Drum Competition, Mr. Decker is also an avid enthusiast of novelty and ragtime music of the early 1900s with a special interest in the xylophone repertoire of the time. 

 

Widely considered a chief architect of the contemporary world music movement, Mr. Hussain’s contribution has been unique, with many historic and groundbreaking collaborations, including Shakti, Remember Shakti, Masters of Percussion, Planet Drum and Global Drum Project with Mickey Hart; Tabla Beat Science, Sangam with Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland; CrossCurrents with Dave Holland and Chris Potter; in trio with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer and in quartet with Herbie Hancock.

As a composer, Mr. Hussain has scored music for numerous feature films, major events and productions. He has composed three concertos, and his third, the first-ever concerto for tabla and orchestra, was premiered in India in 2015 by the Symphony Orchestra of India, premiered in Europe and the U.K. in 2016 and in the U.S. in 2017 by the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. A Grammy Award winner, Mr. Hussain is the recipient of countless awards and honors, including Padma Bhushan, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the U.S.’s National Heritage Fellowship and Officier in France’s Order of Arts and Letters. Voted “Best Percussionist” by both the Downbeat Critics’ Poll and Modern Drummer’s Reader’s Poll over several years including 2020, he was honored in 2018 by the Montreal Jazz Festival with their Antonio Carlos Jobim Award. In 2019 he was named a Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellow and received two honorary doctorates, one from Berklee College of Music and the other from Indira Kala Sangit University in Khairagarh, India.

As an educator, Mr. Hussain conducts many workshops and lectures each year, has been in residence at Princeton University and Stanford University, and, in 2015, was appointed Regents Lecturer at University of California, Berkeley. His yearly workshop in the San Francisco Bay Area, conducted for the past 30 years, has become a widely anticipated event for performers and serious students of tabla. He is the founder and president of Moment Records, an independent record label presenting rare live recordings of Indian classical music and world music. He was resident artistic director at SFJAZZ from 2013 until 2016, and was honored with SFJAZZ’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, in recognition of his “unparalleled contribution to the world of music.”

 

As an educator, Mr. Kibort taught private lessons in Chicago and has taught at the New Music School, People’s Music School, Merit School of Music, and was a percussion ensemble instructor at Amos Alonzo Stagg High School in Illinois. 

Mr. Kibort has received his bachelor of music degree from Roosevelt University, where he studied with Vadim Karpinos and Edward Harrison. He has also studied at DePaul University with NWS alumni David Herbert and Eric Millstein.

 

He is also a composer of a growing body of percussion pieces including his Concerto for Brass and Percussion and the Divertissement No. 2 for Timpani Soloist and Large Ensemble, both premiered by the New World Symphony.  

Mr. Orfaly has been a winner of the Percussive Arts Society International Composition Contest four times: in 2001 for Divertissement No. 1, in 2006 for Rhapsody No. 2, in 2010 for Improvvisatto Contrasto, and finally in 2015 for Copper Wired. In an on-going collaboration with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, he has been commissioned to write works for the orchestra. The Mean Man’s March for solo xylophone and orchestra was premiered by the orchestra in 2010. In 2012 the orchestra commissioned and premiered his work for narrator and orchestra, Cowboy Bill. Continuing the collaboration, the piece Breaking Light for five percussionists and orchestra was premiered in the summer of 2017.

 

Originally from Southern California, Mr. Petrasek earned his bachelor's degree at UCLA studying under Mitchell Peters, former Timpanist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He went on to receive a master's degree at Temple University, studying with Philadelphia Orchestra percussionists Alan Abel and Angela Zator-Nelson.  

Mr. Petrasek lives in Atlanta with his wife, Jessica, and their two cats.

 

Mr. Prasad has spent summers performing in music festival orchestras such as the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, Spoleto Festival Orchestra in South Carolina and Pacific Music Festival in Japan. In addition to his position with the North Carolina Symphony, he spends his summers performing as Principal Percussionist with the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra and is also a percussionist in the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. 

 

The past several summers provided Mr. Ritenauer opportunities to attend the Tanglewood Music Center (Guest 2017, Fellow 2018), The Music Academy of the West (2016) as well as the Roundtop Festival Institute (2015). Each summer, he was involved in many chamber works, as well as works for percussion ensemble. He has had the opportunity to play under the batons of Andris Nelsons, Alan Gilbert, James Gaffigan, Stefan Asbury, Thomas Adès and Matthias Pintscher.  

Mr. Ritenauer attended the Manhattan School of Music (BM) where he studied with Christopher Lamb, Duncan Patton, She-e Wu, Erik Charlston and Jeff Milarsky, and was the recipient of the Avedis Zildjian Scholarship. To finish his schooling, he studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music (MM) with primary teacher and NWS alumnus, Marc Damoulakis as well as Paul Yancich and Richard Weiner. While at the Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Ritenauer was awarded runner-up in the Kerope Zildjian scholarship competition in 2014 and 2015. In between degrees he competed in the Modern Snare Drum Competition and was runner-up.

 

The New York Times commented, “Charles Rosmarin, a percussionist, handled herculean labors heroically,” in response to his chamber performance of Peter Maxwell Davies’ De Assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis with the New Juilliard Ensemble. He performed as soloist with the National Repertory Orchestra, playing Russell Peck’s triple concerto The Glory and the Grandeur in the summer of 2018.  

Mr. Rosmarin also plays percussion in a period-performance context, performing with New York's Trinity Wall Street Baroque Ensemble, Clarion Orchestra, Yale Schola Cantorum, New Vintage Baroque and Juilliard's historical performance program, Juilliard415.  

Mr. Rosmarin received a bachelor of music degree from The Juilliard School and a master of music degree from New England Conservatory. He was pursuing a professional studies certificate at the Colburn School before arriving at the New World Symphony. In his free time, he enjoys long-distance running and reading. 

 

In addition to his orchestral work, Mr. Sherwood is a passionate advocate for contemporary music. For the past decade, he has served as artistic director and percussionist for Sonic Generator, a chamber ensemble specializing in performances of modern electro-acoustical music. An active teacher and clinician, he has presented masterclasses at many of the nation's top universities and conservatories. He has also been the director of the annual Modern Snare Drum Competition, held by the Atlanta Symphony and attracting students from all across the United States.

 

She has been the recipient of many awards including first prize in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Young Artist Concerto Competition, Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award and Polish National Alliance's Young Artist Award. 

Ms. Suchocka has performed as soloist with the Chicago Symphony and at Carnegie Hall as a winner of the NPR's YouTube Big Break competition. She is one of the founding members of Excelsis, an all-female percussion quartet based in New York City. She has also performed as percussionist with the Mark Morris Dance Group as a fellow at Tanglewood, where she collaborated with the great dancer and choreographer, Mark Morris. 

Ms. Suchocka is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music for both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She studied with Christopher Lamb, Duncan Patton, She e Wu, Kyle Zerna, Patsy Dash and Douglas Waddell. Outside of percussion, she enjoys going to art museums and going to heavy metal music concerts.