Dr. Alan Yamamoto is the conductor of the new Queens University Orchestra and since 2011 has conducted the Opera Theater Orchestra at Central Piedmont Community College, where he is on the faculty of the Department of Music. Dr. Yamamoto first came to Charlotte as the Resident Conductor of the Charlotte Symphony for six seasons, and was prior to that time the Resident Conductor of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder for nine seasons.
An advocate of living composer works, Dr. Yamamoto created the Modern Music Festival in Boulder to showcase contemporary art and world music, works for film and dance, including a diverse list of guest artist residencies with Foday Musa Suso, Chico Freeman, Joan Tower, Chen Yi, William Albright, and John Corigliano. The festival was commended by the Colorado State Legislature for its innovative and cultural contribution to the Arts. He has presented local premieres of such works as John Adams’s Harmonielehre and a concert version of Nixon in China, Michael Daugherty’s Metropolis Symphony, Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral, and Chen Yi’s Duo Ye and Ge Xu: Antiphony.
In his ongoing collaborative ventures, Dr. Yamamoto has conducted historical reenactments of Stravinsky’s Agon and Hindemith’s Four Temperaments with the Charlotte Ballet, combined student and faculty from Central Piedmont Dance Theater and the UNC Charlotte Percussion Ensemble in Stravinsky’s Les Noces, and presented an historical performance of Britten’s War Requiem for the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War I with multiple local university music departments.
Dr. Yamamoto has created a lecture and performance series centered on the chamber ensemble version of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony as created by Arnold Schoenberg’s post WWI enclave, the Society for Private Musical Performances, which he has presented in Boulder, New Orleans, and Houston. He holds degrees from the University of Colorado in Boulder, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the University of California at Berkeley.