Lawrence Golan, Biography


Lawrence Golan is currently the Resident Conductor of The Phoenix Symphony. In that capacity, he plans, programs and conducts on each of the symphony’s major series including Classics, Pops, Favorites, Family and Education. Golan is also Music Director & Conductor of the Lamont Symphony Orchestra & Opera Theatre and the Portland Ballet Company. In addition, he continues to guest conduct professional orchestras, opera and ballet companies in the United States and around the world. Mr. Golan has conducted in 23 U.S. states and 12 countries. Recent performances include concerts with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Chorus, the Colorado Music Festival, the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic, and a tour of Italy with the Orchestra Citta’ di Grosseto.

Golan is known for his inspired performances, imaginative programming, passion for developing new audiences, and excellent public speaking skills—entertaining and/or educating the audience from both on and off the podium. He is also recognized for his expertise in the complete spectrum of musical styles and periods.

Golan’s deep commitment to community outreach and audience development goes back several years. Earlier in his career, he founded the Atlantic Chamber Orchestra with the sole purpose of developing new audiences for classical music by making it more relevant and exciting. He created concert events specifically designed to bring in new listeners, and the successes he had in that endeavor led the Conductors Guild to invite him to speak at their national conference on the subject of developing 21^st century audiences. Furthermore, several of the concerts that Golan has programmed and conducted with The Phoenix Symphony have turned out to be the most financially successful and well-attended performances in the 63-year history of the orchestra, completely selling out triple concert sets in a 2200-seat hall.

A staunch supporter of music education, Golan is the Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. He has won six consecutive Outstanding Merit Awards from the University of Denver, four ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, and the Downbeat Magazine Award for “Best College Symphony Orchestra”.

A native of Chicago, Lawrence Golan holds degrees from the Indiana University School of Music (B.M. and M.M.) and the New England Conservatory of Music (D.M.A.). In addition, he studied at all of the major conducting festivals including Aspen and Tanglewood, where in 1999 he was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship. The long list of distinguished conductors with whom Mr. Golan studied includes Robert Spano, Jorma Panula, David Zinman, Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Murry Sidlin, and Harold Farberman.

Mr. Golan’s most recent recordings are with the Moravian Philharmonic on the Albany Records label. His recording of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 and Tchaikovsky 6.1 by Peter Boyer, a work that Golan commissioned and premiered, was released in May of 2008. Funky Little Crustaceans features orchestral music by Colorado composer William Hill and Visions, Dreams & Memories is a collection of works for Native American flute and orchestra with James Pellerite, former Principal Flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and now one of the world’s premiere Native American flutists. In addition, Mr. Golan has several commercially available recordings as a violinist.

Lawrence Golan’s edition and reduced orchestration of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker is published by Spurwink River Publishing and is used by orchestras and ballet companies across North America. His most recent publication is a scholarly-performing edition of the solo violin works of J. S. Bach that includes a handbook on Baroque Performance Practice published by Mel Bay Publications.

Lawrence and his wife Cecilia, a hospitality industry executive from Buenos Aires, Argentina, have been married since 2003.

Printer friendly version - PDF