The InterSchool Orchestras of New York has announced that TONG CHEN will serve as music director beginning on July 1, 2018. She will succeed Brian Worsdale. Chen was assistant conductor at the Shanghai Opera House from 2004 to 2009 and has worked with orchestras across the globe. In the U.S., she has conducted the Orchestra St. Luke’s, Charleston Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, among others. A frequent cover conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop, she was also cover conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 2009 to 2011. She was a conducting fellow of the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, and in 2012 received the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship. This season’s highlight includes her debuts with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Philharmonia, and Shanghai Philharmonic. Chen is currently based in New York City, where she is conductor for the orchestral and graduate conducting program at Aaron Copland School of Music, CUNY. Chen’s appointment as music director marks the first time in the InterSchool Orchestras’ 46-year history that a woman has held the post.
Posted February 23, 2018
