The San Diego Symphony has announced the appointment of SAMEER PATEL as assistant conductor and KENSHO WATANABE as conducting fellow.
Sameer Patel, who starts at San Diego this summer, recently completed three seasons as associate conductor of the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Philharmonic. During the 2014-15 season he participated in the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Project Inclusion Conducting Fellowship program. In 2013 Patel was in the League of American Orchestras’ Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, and in 2011 he was named Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholar by conductor Kurt Masur, whom he assisted at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Kensho Watanabe, the San Diego Symphony’s new conducting fellow, was a finalist in the orchestra’s assistant conductor search. He recently completed his tenure as the Curtis Institute of Music’s inaugural conducting fellow under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Watanabe received a diploma in conducting from Curtis in 2013 and a master’s degree in violin from the Yale School of Music in 2010.
Posted June 5, 2015
Sameer Patel photo: Arielle Doneson
