Simeone Tartaglione, Music Director

   Simeone Tartaglione is a versatile conductor whose passion for music in many forms keeps him busy.

   His preparation was in the European tradition, covering conducting, composition, opera and chamber music in Rome at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory and piano performance at the V. Bellini Institute. In addition to his various degrees and honors, he is Doctor in Philology (Italian Literature and Musicology), Magna cum Laude.

   Maestro Tartaglione has had extensive conducting experience in symphonic and operatic repertoires with orchestras from Italy, Spain, the United States, Russia, Romania, Mexico, Ukraine and Bulgaria.

   He has won numerous competitions and prizes along the way (Allied Arts, Leon Guide, Athanor, Le Arti, Telamone, Diamante della Musica, Sykele’, Rapisarda).  In Rome he worked as the Artistic Director of the Theatre Fusillo and the MUSA Cultural Association for five years. 

   After winning an audition at the University of Denver as Assistant Conductor he moved to Denver in 2005. At the same University he became Adjunct Professor of Conducting.  He worked as guest conductor, vocal coach, pianist and harpsichord player with Central City Opera, Marilyn Horne Foundation, Colorado Symphony Orchestra Education and Outreach Programs, DYAO, CYSO, Augustana Musica Sacra Orchestra, Broadway Music School.  He has served as cover conductor and assistant for the London Symphony Chorus (Denver tour), Colorado Symphony, Baltimore Opera, Baltimore Symphony, Peabody Symphony, Peabody Opera, MidAtlantic Symphony, and Hopkins Chorus.

   Invited by Maestro Gustav Meier, Maestro Tartaglione refined his craft at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore with a conducting assistantship. Since 2008 he serves as Adjunct Faculty for the Peabody Opera Department. 

   He serves as the Music Director of the Newark Symphony Orchestra, the Music Director of the BE Orchestra in Baltimore, MD, and is a conductor and on the board of directors of the Chesapeake Concert Opera in Baltimore. In Italy he is the  Artistic Director of the Symphonia Association since 2004.

Ryan Tibbetts, Newark Symphony Chorus Director & Asst. Conductor

Ryan Tibbetts is a doctoral candidate in the Choral Conducting program at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.  Recent appointments include a spring 2011 sabbatical replacement position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Bucknell University, where he directed the Rooke Chapel Choir and Bucknell Concert Chorale alongside teaching duties in the Music Department, and Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor for The Princeton Festival’s June 2011 production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.  Currently, he is Director of Music and Organist at Summit Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, where he conducts the choir and handbell ensemble.  At Indiana University, Mr. Tibbetts was the chorus master for the IU Opera Theater productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor (Nicolai) and The Most Happy Fella (Loesser) and Roméo et Juliette (Gounod), and assistant chorus master for Susannah (Floyd) and La Rondine (Puccini), in addition to teaching undergraduate conducting and assisting the University Singers and University Chorale.   He conducted two performances with the University Singers, most recently performing Vaughn Williams’ Flos Campi and Britten’s Cantata Misericordium with the Conductors’ Orchestra and student soloists.  He received his BA in Music from Princeton University, where he was an assistant conductor of the Glee Club and associate conductor of the Sinfonia, and received his MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Delaware, where his conducting activities included performances with the Chamber Choir, Concert Choir, Collegium Musicum, and UD Symphony Orchestra.  While at UD, he also served as an assistant conductor for the 60-voice UD Chorale and 100-120-voice UD Schola Cantorum, and helped to prepare performances of Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Handel’s Coronation Anthem The King Shall Rejoice, and the Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music.  In addition, he prepared the chorus for the UD Opera Workshop production of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene and assisted in chorus preparation for Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.  He also served for two years as Director of Liturgical Music at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Middletown, Delaware, and spent two years as director of the Meadowood Singers in Bloomington.  He has studied conducting with William Jon Gray, Paul Head, Brian Stone, Richard Tang Yuk, Carmen Téllez, and Gary Wedow, and has participated in shorter class sessions and masterclasses with conductors such as Charles Bruffy, Vance George, Don Moses, Robert Porco and Dale Warland.  He is a native of Wilmington, Delaware. 

S. Mordecai Fuhrman, Family Series Conductor & Asst. Conductor

S. Mordecai Fuhrman is a 2008 graduate of the University of Delaware and has been a member of the Newark Symphony Orchestra since 1997. He has played professionally and on a volunteer basis with several musical groups in the region, including the Delaware County Symphony Orchestra, the Wilmington Community Orchestra, and the Immaculata College Symphony. While a student at the University of Delaware, he was also a member of the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra and the University of Delaware Chorale (with whom he gave numerous performances alongside the Delaware Symphony Orchestra). In 2007, he won the university's student concerto competition. Since graduating Magna cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music from UD he has dedicated his life to conducting, serving as assistant conductor with the Wilmington Community Orchestra (as well as the NSO), attending workshops and studying privately. In 2010 he served as Music Director for the inaugural Newark Symphony Family Concert, and in 2011 he founded the Reading Orchestra of North Wilmington. He resides in Wilmington, Delaware.

David M. Brown, Concerto Competition Winner Conductor &

  Asst. Conductor

   David is an orchestral conductor who has directed dozens of world premiers, including that of Melissa Dunphy’s nationally acclaimed Gonzales Cantata. He made his Newark Symphony conducting debut in March of 2011, leading Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf with actor and narrator, Michael Boudewyns. David studied with cellist-conductor, Ovidiu Marinescu.

   A violinist, David is an active and ardent performer of classical music. He is a current student of world-renowned violinist, Xiang Gao at the University of Delaware, and has studied previously with Sylvia Ahramjian, Timothy Schwarz, and Charles Ponall. David holds a dual bachelor’s degree in violin performance and music theory & composition from West Chester University, where he served as concertmaster of the symphony, chamber, and baroque orchestras, as well as first violinist of the graduate string quartet, Finesse. In 2009 he was the college division winner of the NSO’s Concerto Competition, and in May of 2010 performed the Khachaturian violin concerto with the orchestra under the baton of Dr. Jeremy Gill. He currently serves as concertmaster of the UD Symphony Orchestra.

   Also a Celtic fiddler and mandolinist, David performs with, and composes for the progressive, “virtuoso” Celtic band, the Stonehaven Minstrels, based in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He has collaborated in concert with such esteemed Irish musicians as guitarist Cal Scott and fiddler Kevin Burke. David is the composer of over fifty Celtic jigs, reels, hornpipes, and other dances.

   A commissioned composer, David has written for a vast variety of instrumental and vocal media. His compositions have been performed and recorded by esteemed artists such as Philadelphia’s Network for New Music and New York City’s LINK Ensemble. He is currently composing an eight-movement suite for large symphony orchestra, commissioned by and based on the astrophotography of Dr. David N. Hockenberry.

   David is an avid tuba player who served as principal tubist of West Chester University’s Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Winds ensembles. He is currently the tuba and euphonium teacher at the Westtown School. His teachers were Jonathan Fowler and Jay Krush.