LEIF BJALAND
Artistic Director
Sarasota Orchestra, FL
Music Director
Waterbury Symphony Orchestra, CT
Leif Bjaland is one of the most dynamic and exciting American conductors now before the public. Currently serving as the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Sarasota Orchestra, the orchestra has seen unprecedented growth in his tenure. In addition, Mr. Bjaland is also Music Director of the Waterbury Symphony in Connecticut where he has received enormous enthusiasm and critical praise for his performances and imaginative programming.
A popular and active guest conductor, Mr. Bjaland made his debut at the 2003 Ravinia Festival conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program entitled "Bernstein on Broadway" also involving soloists, chorus and dancers. He has also appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Fort Worth, Nashville, Detroit, Rochester, Utah, Madison, Akron, Fort Wayne, Fresno, Des Moines, Mobile, San Jose, Rhode Island, Virginia, Harrisburg, Colorado, Long Beach, Chicago's Symphony II, Grand Rapids, Flint, Kalamazoo, and New World to name but a few. Mr. Bjaland led the Cincinnati Symphony at an opening concert of a Riverbend summer season, and conducted at Chicago's Grant Park Music Festival in consecutive summers of 1995 and 1996. In 2001, he conducted the opening week of the Interlochen Arts Festival, and in the summer of 2002 guest conducted the Young Artists Orchestra at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute culminating in a performance in Ozawa Hall.
Mr. Bjaland is also an active opera conductor and assisted in the production of David Carlson's The Midnight Angel at Glimmerglass Opera. He conducted the Florida Grand Opera in three productions in four years including a highly acclaimed Don Giovanni a triple bill of one-act operas by Manuel de Falla - El Amor Brujo, Master Peter's Puppet Show and La Vida Breve; and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Bjaland received great attention and critical acclaim when he gave the world premiere concert performance of George Chadwick's opera The Padrone. In 2000-01 Leif Bjaland conducted a new commission by the Florida West Coast Symphony of David Carlson's Quantumsymphony.
Mr. Bjaland has conducted in Europe and Asia. He conducted the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to great acclaim with six performances of three programs. He has conducted the Malmo Symphony in Sweden and he also took that country's Gavleborgs Symphony Orchestra on a four-city tour. He conducted the Orchestra of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in Oslo in a concert televised throughout Scandinavia and he conducted Coppelia at the Ballet de L'Opera Royal de Wallonie in Liege, Belgium. He has conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic as well as the Philippine Philharmonic in Manila. The latter appearance led to an immediate invitation to return to that city to conduct a new production of Madama Butterfly for the Opera Company of the Philippines.
In 1989, Mr. Bjaland was named resident conductor and artistic coordinator of the New World Symphony and served in that capacity for four years. Following his debut conducting the orchestra and in his many subsequent appearances, he received the all-out praise of the critics who have called him "a young sculptor in sound" and "one of the key figures in the development of the New World Symphony." Highlights of his residency with New World included his conducting the American premiere of the Frank Martin Symphony 1937 as well as the Florida premieres of the Martinu Symphony No. 5 and the Bruckner Symphony No. 2.
Leif Bjaland was selected by Leonard Bernstein in 1988 to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at several concerts as part of the American Conductors Program. He led the Chicagoans in Richard Strauss' tone poem Till Eulenspiegel of which Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein said"Bjaland clearly has the most experience, the best technique and the best musical command." In the summer of 1990, Bjaland was invited by Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas to participate in the premiere season of the Pacific Music Festival in Japan where he conducted the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra and the Sapporo Symphony in the Festival's closing performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
From 1986-1990, Mr. Bjaland was Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure he conducted the orchestra in many highly praised subscription concerts and also served as music director of the award-winning San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra which he took on an Asian tour in July 1989; and to Italy, France and Spain in the summer of 1992. Prior to his appointment at the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Bjaland was a professor of music at Yale University and served as music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, which he led on a very successful tour of Europe in 1985.
A native of Michigan, Leif Bjaland received his Master's degree in music from the University of Michigan where he was a student of Gustav Meier and Elizabeth A.H. Green. He is the recipient of an honorary doctor of music degree, conferred by Susquehanna University.
REVIEWS
Solists get the job done
"Ani, on violin, and Ida, with the viola, played this music like a second skin, and the orchestra, under conductor Leif Bjaland, collaborated attentively."
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Gayle Williams
First 'Masterworks' gets change of scene
"Artistic director and conductor Leif Bjaland, opening his 10th year with the Florida West Coast Symphony in the first "Masterworks" concert of the season Friday, now leads an exceptional orchestra with only a few new faces this year."
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Gayle Williams
"Bjaland has a certain fire in him as well with this music [Stravinsky's Firebird Suite], and the audience loved it. At times, we heard every bit of the power and fine musical execution of the Kirov Orchestra ..."
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
"Under the focused guidance of demanding guest conductor, Leif Bjaland, mid-career music of Beethoven and Mahler (Symphony No. 5) received an attentive and largely engaging reading that prompted enthusiastic applause. Bjaland was electric on the podium throughout the five-movement work, guiding a huge orchestra through countless variations in mood and swinging emotional extremes."
The Tennessean
"The true star of this production was the conductor, Leif Bjaland, who led superior Mozart [Don Giovanni, Florida Grand Opera]: brisk yet warm, all clarity, wit and courtly style. With the noticeable full-bodied Florida Philharmonic, he caught the dark drama of the dread-filled overture, its urgency, nobility and breadth."
Miami Herald