CO-DIRECTOR BAHMAN SALESS |
Bahman Saless started his dual career as composer and physicist during his teen years in England. After obtaining his A-level and O-level certificates in music, mathematics and physics, Dr. Saless immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his BS in Physics from Michigan State University, in 1981 while studying Violin at the same time. He then pursued a career as a physicist, obtaining his Doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Colorado in 1987. During his graduate study, Dr. Saless was a member of Boulder Philharmonic orchestra and founder of The Principia Quartet in Boulder. In 1989, after having served as physics lecturer at the Colorado school of mines and a research scientist for NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Dr. Saless moved to Los Angeles to continue his dual ambitions by working as a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and enrolling in film scoring studies at UCLA. In 1990, Dr. Saless’ Guitar Trio, Mexican Moonlight, won the Pacific Composer’s Forum composition Competition. After completing his studies at UCLA in 1991, Dr. Saless worked as a composer of film trailers and teasers with Universal Studios as well as other Hollywood production houses. His works include trailer music for films such as Carlito’s Way, Romeo is Bleeding, and Beethoven 2nd. Having spent years away from his beloved Colorado, Dr. Saless and his wife moved back to Boulder in 1994.
In 2004, Dr. Saless founded the Boulder Chamber Orchestra where he is music director, and in 2010 he co-founded the International Conducting Institute in order to help further the art of conducting.
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CO-DIRECTOR SILAS HUFF |
Silas Nathaniel Huff has conducted outstanding orchestral, choral, opera, ballet, and new music performances for more than a dozen years. In the United States Maestro Huff has conducted youth, university, and professional ensembles in California, Indiana, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Virgina. Internationally, he has conducted in France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Russia. Maestro Huff currently holds the music directorships of the Astoria Symphony (NYC) and the Round Rock Symphony (TX), conducts Moscow Ballet tours of the USA, and is the Associate Producer of Opera at the Manhattan School of Music. In 2010, he co-founded the International Conducting Institute to help further the art of conducting.
A native Texan, Maestro Huff studied classical guitar at Texas State University before moving to Los Angeles where he earned a Master of Music degree in music theory and composition at UCLA. While there, Maestro Huff studied conducting with Donal Neuen and eventually became a full-time student of orchestral conducting at California State University in Long Beach under Richard Rontoul. Mr. Huff also spent one year in residence at the Trossingen Hochschule für Musik (southwest Germany), six months studying privately in Berlin, and two summers at L'Institut Musical Provence-Aubagne (Aix-en-Provence, France). Maestro Huff has attended dozens of workshops led by some of the world’s finest maestros, including Maestros Kirk Trevor, Gustav Meier, Mariusz Smolij, Rossen Milanov, Michael Tilson Thomas, Carl St. Clair, Harold Farberman, and others.
Maestro Huff loves travelling, espresso, bicycling, photography, and his novelist wife Taylor Morris.
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