Fort Collins Symphony Association’s board president Maury Dobbie was pleased to announce today Maestro Wes Kenney’s contract as Music Director has been extended through 2017. Now beginning his thirteenth year, the award-winning conductor will lead the orchestra as they offer a season filled with legendary music composed and performed by artists who will leave a legacy of great performances. The 2015-16 Legends & Legacies Season begins on October 3, 2015 and will feature Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with guest artist Norman Krieger on piano.
Wes Kenney was hired as the Music Director of the Fort Collins (Colorado) Symphony and Director of Orchestras at Colorado State University in 2003. Named in 2004 to an additional post as Music Director of Opera Fort Collins, he currently conducts three professional operatic productions as well as numerous orchestra concerts and dance performances each season throughout Northern Colorado.
Kenney’s performances, described by reviewers as “beautiful and exciting,” “lively and stylish,” and “first-rate” have raised the level of the Fort Collins Symphony to one of the premier regional orchestras in the west. He was awarded the First Prize in the 2007 Varna International Conducting Competition and continues to be in demand as a guest conductor, having most recently conducted the Acadiana (LA) Symphony, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, New Mexico All-State Orchestra Lafayette (IN) Symphony, and the Colorado Music Festival. International guest conducting includes performances with the Vidin State Philharmonic and Stara Zagora Opera Company in Bulgaria as well as the Edinburgh (Scotland) Music Festival. He has also appeared with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Savannah Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, Dubuque Symphony, San Juan (CO) Symphony and the Coastal Valleys (CA) Symphony.
Mr. Kenney is a graduate of the University of Southern California and San Francisco State University and was awarded the prestigious Carmen Dragon Conducting Prize in 1992. Additional studies include a year at the Vienna Hochschule fur Musik, three years as a fellow at the Conductors Institute, several American Symphony Orchestra League and Conductors Guild Workshops, and the Sandpoint Festival. His teachers include Harold Farberman, Hans Beer, Gunther Schuller, Hans Swarovsky and Miltiardes Carides.
