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Photo: University of North Carolina School of the Arts

Founding Director, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, University of North Carolina School of the Arts

Berlin Prize Fellow - Class of Spring 2000


John Mauceri is a world-renowned conductor, arranger, educator, and writer who has worked with the world’s major opera companies and symphony orchestras, on the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood, and in academia. From 2006-2013 he served as Chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and he is the Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which was created for him in 1991 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

 

Mauceri served as music director of the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy, for three years, after completing seven years as music director of Scottish opera, the first American ever to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. He was also music director of the Washington Opera (The Kennedy Center), the Pittsburgh Opera, and was the first music director of American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall after its founding director, Leopold Stokowski, with whom he studied. For 15 years Mauceri served on the faculty of his alma mater, Yale University, and returned in 2001 to teach and conduct the official concert celebrating the university’s 300th anniversary. For 18 years, he worked closely with Leonard Bernstein and conducted many of the composer’s premieres, at Bernstein’s request.

 

At the heart of Mauceri’s work is the championing of refugee and banned composers—performing, editing, and recording works that had otherwise been suppressed or forgotten. To this end, he was one of two conductors who initiated the Entartete Musik series on Decca, recorded primarily in Berlin, and a simultaneous series with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, in Los Angeles.

 

Mauceri has lectured at Harvard University, Yale University, the Smithsonian Institution, the NEA, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has written for or been interviewed by Gramophone Magazine, NPR, BBC, PBS, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Huffington Post, for whom he regularly writes a blog.

 

The recipient of Grammy, Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk, Edison, Emmy, Diapason d’Or, Cannes Classique, Billboard, and four Deutsche Schallplatten awards, Mauceri has released over 80 music CDs. He has been honored with many awards and commendations, including “John Mauceri Day” in the state of California, a Treasure of Los Angeles Award, and the Young Musicians Foundation Award.

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