“The Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra has announced the selection of Maestro Tianhui Ng as the new music director and orchestral conductor of the 80-year-old symphony,” writes Clifton Noble Jr. in Saturday’s (7/7) Republican (Springfield, Mass.). “He has led [the Mt. Holyoke College Symphony Orchestra] since 2011 [and] conducted orchestras around the world…. An advocate of new music, Ng has premiered pieces by … Curt Cacioppo, Aaron Jay Kernis, Robert Kyr, David Sanford, and Joan Tower, and has championed the works of young, emerging composers.” The Singapore native studied piano, voice, trombone, and composition at the U.K.’s University of Birmingham and the Yale School of Music. In Singapore, “Ng helped found one of the nation’s first contemporary music ensembles [and] created the groundbreaking site-specific community-based arts festival NOMAD.” Ng replaces Paul Phillips, who left after 23 seasons in 2017 to become director of orchestral studies at Stanford University. Ng’s first season in 2018-19 will conclude with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. “Preparing the significant choral portion of that program … will be Interim Chorus Director Gregory W. Brown, hired on while the PVS and Chorus undertake a search for Jonathan Harvey, who stepped down at the end of the previous season.”
Posted July 10, 2018
