Melinda Johnson writes in Friday’s (5/16) Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.), “Symphoria, Central New York’s orchestra, has hired Lawrence Loh as its first music director.… He will assume his Symphoria post at the start of the 2015-2016 season.” Currently resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Loh guest conducted Symphoria twice in 2013 and returns for three engagements in 2014-15. Johnson reports that Symphoria, established in December 2012 as successor to the bankrupt Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, is a musician-managed orchestra with a 52-musician core and a budget of $1.5 million. As music director Loh will fill “an important artistic position for the orchestra that wraps up its first full subscription season with tonight’s pops concert at Crouse Hinds Theater in the John H. Mulroy Civic Center. He signed a three-year contract with Symphoria that keeps him in the post through 2018.” The orchestra “has slowly been filling in key positions in its administrative and artistic staffs. Catherine Underhill was hired as managing director last August.” Loh will relinquish his Pittsburgh posts and relocate to Syracuse with his family in the summer of 2015.
Posted May 20, 2014
Photo of Lawrence Loh by Rob Davidson
