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Israel Getzov - Biography
Updated: September 2009
Israel Getzov has held the post of Music Director of the Conway Symphony Orchestra since 2005, leading the orchestra to new artistic heights. Under Getzov’s leadership the CSO has been called “Energetic and highly entertaining....A joy to hear” (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette).
As Associate Conductor of the Arkansas Symphony, he led classical subscription concerts, pops concerts, education concerts as well as numerous outreach concerts around the state. Around the nation Mr. Getzov has led performances with the Asheville Symphony, Abilene Philharmonic, Monroe Symphony, Skokie Valley Symphony, Symphony of the Mountains, Chicago Musical College Orchestra and the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera. In 2008 he conducted the world premier of a new opera by composer Lori Laitman based on Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter. Since his debut at the International Music Festival in Fuzhou in 2005, Mr. Getzov has made regular appearances in China and currently holds the post of Principal Guest Conductor with the Fujian Provence Symphony Orchestra and East China Normal University Symphony in Shanghai. Mr. Getzov has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Alexander Markov, Jorge Federico Osorio, David Kim, Steven Doane, Jamie Bernstein, New Century Saxophone Quartet and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Mr. Getzov is a leader in the training of young musicians. He is Director of Orchestras at the University of Central Arkansas, the premier orchestral training program in the state. He is the creator of “Secrets of the Orchestra” a series of orchestral concerts for school children in which he uses his unique brand of enthusiasm to introduce standard orchestral repertoire to young audiences. As a founding member of both the Rockefeller String Quartet and the ASO Arts Partners, he has performed chamber music for over 15,000 school children. He also hosts a weekly radio program on KLRE Classical 90.5.
Raised in Chicago, Mr. Getzov’s musical studies began with the violin at age four and later included viola, piano and percussion. At age sixteen he became a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and went on to receive a full scholarship at the Chicago College of the Performing Arts where he studied the violin and orchestral performance. He earned an advanced degree in conducting from the Cleveland Institute of Music and received additional training at the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival and the National Conducting Institute with the National Symphony Orchestra. He studied conducting with Jorma Panula, David Zinman, Robert Spano, Leonard Slatkin, Murry Sidlin, Kenneth Keisler and Carl Topilow.