NEW CONSERVATORY OF DALLAS HISTORY

The New Conservatory of Dallas is an internationally known music program with the mission to provide quality music education and performing opportunities for young musicians. Under the leadership of founder and artistic director, Arkady Fomin, the Conservatory Chamber Orchestra has presented concerts in a number of cities in the U.S., performed twice at The White House, and toured Russia, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, and Scotland. The music critic of the Aberdeen paper, The Scotsman, wrote, "The Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, Dallas, produced some of the richest string sounds I have heard in the difficult acoustics of St. Giles' Cathedral. The programme was performed with superb discipline and musicality." Conservatory performances have been broadcast by WRR in Dallas, National Public Radio, as well as abroad by the BBC.

Established in 1979 at the University of Texas at Dallas as a summer workshop, the program moved to Southern Methodist University and added year round activities. The SMU Conservatory was formed in 1982, and in 1994, the New Conservatory of Dallas became an independent non-profit music educational program. Today, the New Conservatory of Dallas offers a year round program and presents summer festivals in Durango, Colorado and Gmunden, Austria. Distinguished Dallas music educators along with members of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra serve on the faculty.

All Conservatory students have opportunities to perform in solo recitals and in ensembles. Over the years, the Conservatory presented the late Dorothy DeLay, Pinchas Zukerman, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Tokyo String Quartet, Lynn Harrell, and Itzhak Perlman in master classes and concerts. The Conservatory brought to Dallas and first presented to the public such celebrated artists as Midori, Gidon Kremer, Yefim Bronfman, Wendy Warner, and others.

A most important focus of the Conservatory though out the years is the cultivation of classical music into the next generation. Because of Conservatory training, hundreds of young people have developed a love and understanding of classical music. Many former Conservatory students have become professional musicians, and others help fill the concert halls as audience members. The New Conservatory of Dallas offers orchestral opportunities to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Young Strings Program and is non-discriminatory as to race, economic condition, or ethnic origin.