Leadership & Staff

Board of Trustees

OFFICERS

President
Richard Miles

Vice President
Christine Snyder

Secretary
John A. Roberts, Esq.

Treasurer
Glenn R. Garven, CFA

TRUSTEES

Hayden J. Cohen

Douglas Fambrough, Ph.D.

Kim Z. Golden, CFA

Kevin Hirano

Christine M. Hurt

Michael A. Jacobs, M.D.

Alfred Ko

Steven E. Norwitz

Yvonne L. Ottaviano, M.D.

Brooke Pollack

Matthew Snow

Andrew Yanai

Advisory Board Members

Madeline Adkins

Michael Mael

Cara Pomponio

Staff

Music Director

Robert Moody

Executive Director

Ben Newman

Composer in Residence

Jonathan Leshnoff

Music Director Emeritus

Markand Thakar

Concert Operations Manager

Erica Spear

Executive Fellow

Jordan Gaines

Stage Manager

Craig Teer

House Manager

David Zeit

Robert Moody, Music Director

In addition to his position as Music Director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Robert Moody currently serves as Music Director for Arizona Musicfest, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and as Principal Conductor for Lakeland Opera (FL). He has led many of the world’s major orchestras and opera companies, including the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Dallas and Houston Symphonies, the Minnesota Orchestra, Washington National Opera, Aachen and Baden Baden Symphony Orchestras in Germany, Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogotá (Colombia), and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra (Austria). He is also a frequent guest conductor in South Africa, where he leads concerts with the three major orchestras there – Cape Town, Johannesburg, and the KZN Philharmonic in Durban.

A frequent collaborator with opera superstar Renée Fleming, he will conduct her on multiple occasions in the 2024-25 season performing Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light (also with Rod Gilfry) and “Voice of Nature,” the song cycle created for Ms. Fleming with National Geographic. A South Carolina native, Moody holds degrees from Furman University and the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his conducting degree with Donald Neuen. Additional studies included an undergraduate term abroad in Vienna, Austria, and a summer of study with Otto Werner Mueller at Le Domaine Forget in Quebec. He is a Rotarian and has served on the boards of AIDs Care Services, Winston-Salem YMCA, WDAV Classical Radio, and the Charlotte Master Chorale. Moody celebrates the life and work of organist Jimmy Jones, his spouse of 18 years who passed away unexpectedly early in 2024. He now dedicates all his musical endeavors to Jimmy. Moody lives in Memphis with their two dogs; he is an avid runner, swimmer, history buff, “Jeopardy!” addict, and snow-skier.

Ben Newman, Executive Director

A seasoned arts professional with experience in artist management, consulting, fundraising, marketing, and production, Ben Newman brings wide ranging experience to the BCO where he oversees the company’s day-to-day operations.

Raised in a musical family with strong ties to the Armenian, Deaf and Jewish communities of Detroit, Ben recently completed a Masters in Creative Leadership as a member of the program’s inaugural class at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Prior to BCO, Ben was General Manager for singer, creator and Musical America’s 2022 Vocalist of The Year, Davóne Tines, during which he produced Strange Fruit for Carnegie Hall’s Voices of Hope Festival, VIGIL Screening & Conversation and OpenProcess an immersive spatial audio performance, both at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Ben is also the Executive Producer for Song of The Ambassadors, a neuroscience based sound healing opera which debuted at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in October 2022 and received an excerpt presentation in April 2023 at TED 2023: Possibility.

During his career Ben has collaborated with many notable artists including Teddy Abrams, Refik Anadol, Matthew Aucoin, Mark Campbell, George Condo, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Helga Davis, Jennifer Koh, Missy Mazzoli, K Allado-McDowell, Justin Peck, Patricia Racette, Wayne Shorter, Carlos Simon, Esperanza Spalding, Dalia Stasevska, and Royce Vavrek at some of the world’s most renowned performance venues including The Barbican, The Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and Academy of Music, and Walt Disney Concert Hall’s REDCAT Theater in Los Angeles.

Jonathan Leshnoff, Composer in Residence

Distinguished by The New York Times as “a leader of contemporary American lyricism,” GRAMMY-nominated composer Jonathan Leshnoff is renowned for his music’s striking harmonies, structural complexity, and powerful themes. The Baltimore-based composer has been ranked among the most performed living composers by American orchestras in recent seasons and his compositions have been performed by leading international orchestras and chamber ensembles in hundreds of concerts worldwide. He has received recent commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, and Pittsburgh, among others. Leshnoff’s compositions have also been premiered by classical music’s most celebrated soloists, including Gil Shaham, Johannes Moser, Manuel Barrueco, Noah Bendix-Balgley, and Joyce Yang. There are eight all-Leshnoff albums to date. Among his most notable recent releases is the 2019 Naxos recording exclusively featuring Leshnoff’s music performed by the Nashville Symphony and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero; nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Classical Compendium, the CD included the World Premiere performance of his Symphony No. 4, “Heichalos” with the Violins of Hope. In the fall of 2020, Reference Recordings released a highly acclaimed all-Leshnoff disc featuring World Premiere recordings of his Piano Concerto and his Symphony No. 3 commemorating World War I. Earlier in 2020, Reference Recordings released an extensively reviewed album featuring the World Premiere performance of Leshnoff’s Double Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon by the Pittsburgh Symphony and conductor Manfred Honeck, which made it to the top of the Billboard charts. Other notable releases include a 2016 recording of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performing Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 2 and Zohar oratorio, and three earlier all-Leshnoff albums—of both his orchestral and chamber music works—on the Naxos American Classics label. A disc featuring all of his string quartets was also released in August 2020. Celebrated by BBC Music Magazine as “enchanting” and by American Record Guide as “lyrical, virtuosic, tender, and passionate all at once,” Leshnoff’s music has been lauded by Strings Magazine as “distinct from anything else that’s out there” and by The Baltimore Sun as “remarkably assured, cohesively constructed and radiantly lyrical.” Leshnoff’s catalog is vast, including several symphonies, various concerti, and solo and chamber music works. Leshnoff is a Professor of Music at Towson University.

Markand Thakar, Music Director Emeritus

BCO’s Music Director from 2004-2023, Thakar is a former assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic and Grand Prize winner of the American Prize in Orchestral Conducting for 2019-20. His appearances on stage include concerts and a national radio broadcast with the New York Philharmonic, as well as concerts with the National, San Antonio, Charlotte, Wichita, Knoxville, Colorado Springs, Illinois, Maryland, National Gallery, Waterbury, and Annapolis symphony orchestras; the Ulsan (South Korea) Philharmonic; the Boston Pro Arte, National, and Cleveland chamber orchestras; and opera productions with Baltimore Opera Theater, Teatro Lirico d’Europa, and Duluth Festival Opera. A frequent guest conductor at the Aspen Music Festival, Mr. Thakar has appeared with Yo-Yo Ma and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and with Itzhak Perlman and the Boulder Philharmonic. He is a winner of the Geraldine C. and Emory M. Ford Foundation Award, and he has been a frequent commentator for NPR’s Performance Today.

With BCO, Thakar has recorded three CDs for the Naxos label, including albums of concertos by Classical Era masters Carl Stamitz, Franz Hoffmeister, Ignaz Pleyel and Jonathan Leshnoff. In 2013, BCO traveled to China to perform a series of Viennese New Year’s concerts, and the Orchestra’s performance in New York that same year earned a review from The New York Times, which praised the group’s “warmth and substance.” During his 12-year’s tenure with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, DSSO saw dramatic growth in both audience and artistic prominence to what Minnesota Public Radio called “Minnesota’s other great orchestra.” Noted internationally as a pedagogue, Maestro Thakar’s two annual intensive conducting programs have drawn conductors from five continents. His students have won significant conducting and music director positions across North America and internationally including with the Hartford, Winnipeg, Oklahoma City, Sioux Falls, and Grande Ronde symphony orchestras; staff conducting positions with The Metropolitan Opera, and the orchestras of Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Dallas, Seattle, St. Louis, Portland (OR), Phoenix, Charlotte, Kansas City; and numerous collegiate positions.

Thakar is the author of three seminal books. On the Principles and Practice of Conducting (University of Rochester Press, 2016) is a manual for acquiring necessary and invaluable skills and understandings. Looking for the “Harp” Quartet; An Investigation into Musical Beauty (University of Rochester Press, 2011) is a journey through the experience of musical beauty from the standpoint of the composer, performer, and listener. The book is described as “a 225-page tour de force,” and “an exercise in academic excellence and a seminal contribution for personal, professional, and academic classical music studies” (Midwest Book Review). Counterpoint: Fundamentals of Music Making (published by Yale University Press, 1990) uses species counterpoint to promote an understanding of how both composers and performers contribute to the experience of musical beauty. Thakar lives in Baltimore with his wife, violist Victoria Chiang.