The Fort Worth Symphony in Texas has appointed ALEX AMSEL and STEPHANIE RHODES RUSSELL as conducting fellows for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons. Amsel and Rhodes Russell are the first two participants in the orchestra’s newly reconceived conductor training program, which has been extended to two seasons and blends coaching with Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya and rehearsals and performances with the orchestra.
Argentinian-born conductor Alex Amsel has worked as a cover conductor for the Baltimore, Indianapolis, Fort Worth, and New Hampshire symphonies. For the summer of 2019, he is the assistant conductor for the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado. Recent engagements include assistant conductor and choir master for the Peabody Conservatory Symphonies and Opera, and faculty conductor for the Philadelphia International Music Festival. Summer engagements include associate at the Cabrillo Music Festival and assistant conductor for the Hot Springs and Miami festivals, and he has appeared with the Monteux School Festival Orchestra. He was the winner of the Miami Music Festival Conducting Competition. Amsel has been on the faculty for the Philadelphia International Music Festival and the Houston Youth Symphony, taught with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas in Jamaica and Dominican Republic, and ran a private bassoon studio in Austin and Houston, Texas. As a bassoonist, Amsel has appeared with several orchestras and music festivals. Amsel recently completed studies at the Peabody Conservatory as a graduate assistant while working towards a master of music in orchestral conducting.
Stephanie Rhodes Russell is the newly appointed associate conductor of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming. She is the recipient of a 2019 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, and makes her European conducting debut this fall with Staatsoper Stuttgart’s Junge Oper im Nord. She recently conducted Handel’s Alcina for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, following an engagement with Washington National Opera’s forum for new works. In 2015 she participated in the Hart Institute for Women Conductors at the Dallas Opera and conducted The Magic Flute at the Miami Summer Music Festival. As a Fulbright award recipient, Rhodes Russell spent the 2012-13 season in Moscow specializing in Russian repertoire. Rhodes Russell has served on the music staffs of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, the Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Washington National Opera. The founder of the non-profit Women’s Artistic Leadership Initiative, she is dedicated to the education and empowerment of young female artists. She holds degrees in collaborative piano and piano performance from the University of Michigan and Utah State University respectively and a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the University of Utah.
Posted July 26, 2019
