24-25 Program Book - Flipbook - Page 73
Murry Sidlin
CREATOR & NARRATOR
Murry Sidlin, President and Artistic Director of The Defiant Requiem Foundation
and creator of the concert-dramas Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín and Hours
of Freedom: The Story of the Terezín Composer, and the play The Verdi Verdict
(Mass Appeal, 1943), is a conductor with a unique gift for engaging audiences
and an internationally recognized educator who lectures extensively on the arts
and humanities as practiced by the prisoners in the Theresienstadt (Terezín)
Concentration Camp.
Mr. Sidlin began his career as assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony under
Sergiu Comissiona and then was appointed resident conductor of the National
Symphony Orchestra by Antal Doráti. He has served as music director of the New
Haven and Long Beach (California) Symphonies, the Tulsa Philharmonic, and the
Connecticut Ballet. Murry Sidlin was principal guest conductor of the Gävleborgs
Symfoniorkester in Sweden and was artistic director of the Cascade Festival of
Music in Bend, Oregon. He has conducted more than 300 concerts with the San
Diego Symphony and led 18 consecutive New Year’s Eve Gala concerts at the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, with the National
Symphony Orchestra. For 8 years, Murry Sidlin was resident conductor of the Oregon
Symphony and, from 2002 to 2010, he served as Dean of the School of Music at The
Catholic University of America where he yet serves as Professor of Conducting and
Instrumental Music. For 33 years, he was resident artist/teacher and associate
director of conducting studies at the Aspen Music Festival and School.
Murry Sidlin studied with the legendary pedagogues Leon Barzin and Sergiu
Celibidache. He was appointed by Presidents Ford and Carter to serve on the White
House Commission of Presidential Scholars and won national acclaim for Music
Is…, a ten-part television series about music for children that was seen on PBS. He
has been featured on NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Sunday
Morning, and CNN International. Murry Sidlin was on the NASA committee – chaired
by the late astronomer Carl Sagan – that was responsible for selecting the contents
for “The Golden Record” carried by the Voyager spacecraft. In May of 2011 Murry
Sidlin received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater the Peabody
Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. He currently serves on the International
Board of Governors of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and, for his
dedication to illuminating the legacy of Terezín, he has received the medal of St.
Agnes of Bohemia from the Archbishop of Prague and the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s
Medal of Valor.
CLASSICAL SERIES VERDI’S DEFIANT REQUIEM 73
