The Orchestra
Beatrice Jona Affron
Music Director & Conductor
Biography
Beatrice Jona Affron first arrived at Pennsylvania Ballet in 1993 as Assistant Conductor. Later, she was promoted to Resident Conductor, and in 1997 she became the Company's Music Director and Conductor. Ms. Affron has conducted many ballets by George Balanchine and other classics, including Giselle, The Firebird, Romeo and Juliet, and The Sleeping Beauty. In 2004, she led the world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's Swan Lake.
Ms. Affron is heard regularly in a large and varied repertoire that encompasses works from Handel, Donizetti, Philip Glass, and others. In 2002, she received international attention when she led the world premiere performances of Glass and Mary Zimmerman's Galileo Galilei at Chicago's Goodman Theater and on a tour to London's Barbican Theatre. Prior to that, Ms. Affron conducted the Boston Lyric Opera and Chicago Opera Theatre productions of Glass' Akhnaten. In 2005, she made her debut with the Glimmerglass Opera conducting a new production in French of Donizetti's Lucie de Lammermoor.
Some of Ms. Affron's past engagements have included Dominick Argento's opera Miss Havisham's Fire with Opera Theatre Saint Louis, Strauss' Die Fledermaus with the Boston Lyric Opera, and Hansel and Gretel and The Tender Land at New England Conservatory. She has led Boston's Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra in two concerts and last summer conducted the Boston Landmarks Orchestra at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade.
A native of New York City and a graduate of Yale University, Ms. Affron studied conducting privately with Robert Spano and at New England Conservatory (where she later served on the faculty) with Pascal Verrot. Ms. Affron also has worked with Gunther Schuller, Jorge Mester, and David Effron. In 1996, she received the Conductors' Guild Thelma A. Robinson Award. Her involvement in contemporary music has included conducting in the Music at the Anthology Series in New York City and leading the national tour of Philip Glass' Les Enfants Terribles in fall 1997. From 2001 to 2004, Ms. Affron served as cover conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
1ST VIOLIN
Luigi Mazzocchi, Concertmaster
Olga Konopelsky
Elizabeth Kaderabek
Barbara Sonies
Heidi Soberick
Shannon Lee
2ND VIOLIN
Paul Reiser
Diane Barnett
Karen Banos
Charlene Kwas
Eliza Cho
VIOLA
Shmuel Katz
Julia DiGaetani
Davis Barnett
Ruth Frazier
VIOLONCELLO
Jennie Lorenzo
Mark Ward
Deborah Reeder
Vivian Barton Dozor
DOUBLE BASS
Anne Peterson
Daniel McDougall
FLUTE
Edward Schultz
Peter Ader
PICCOLO
Peter Ader
OBOE
Rheta Smith
Stephen Labiner
ENGLISH HORN
Stephen Labiner
CLARINET
Charles Salinger
Joshua Kovach
BASS CLARINET
Joshua Kovach
BASSOON
Jon Gaarder
Darryl Hartshorne
FRENCH HORN
Jane Richter
Adam Lesnick
Kathryn Mehrtens
Michael Johns
TRUMPET
Brian Kuszyk
Ralph Buck
TROMBONE
Tim Soberick
Edward Cascarella
BASS TROMBONE
Philip McClelland
TUBA
Jay Krush
TIMPANI & PERCUSSION
Susan Jones
Ralph Sorrentino
HARP
Mindy Cutcher
KEYBOARD
Martha Koeneman
LIBRARIAN
J. Robert Loy
ASST. CONDUCTOR
Salvatore Scarpa
*Concertmaster
