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MM, SHEPHERD SCHOOL OF MUSIC

American conductor Benjamin Manis joined the Utah Symphony as Associate Conductor in September 2022, leading the orchestra on tour as well as at Abravanel Hall and the Deer Valley Music Festival. Before moving to Salt Lake City, Mr. Manis spent three seasons as Resident Conductor of the Houston Grand Opera, making his debut with Verdi’s Rigoletto. Other highlights of his time in Houston include performances of Carmen, Romeo et Juliette and The Snowy Day. He led 4 world premieres, among them the 2020 world premiere of Marian’s Song with the subsequent HGO Digital filmed version and Miller Outdoor Theatre performances of the same work. Mr. Manis returns to HGO in the 22/23 season to lead productions of Tosca and El Milagro del Recuerdo.

Winner of the 2022 and 2019 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Awards, Mr. Manis has served as cover conductor for the St. Louis, Dallas, and National Symphonies, working with conductors Gianandrea Noseda, David Robertson, and Stéphane Denève. Over the course of three years in the Aspen Conducting Academy he assisted and worked closely with conductors such as Robert Spano, Ludovic Morlot, Leonard Slatkin, James Conlon and Vasily Petrenko. After winning the Aspen Conducting Prize, Mr. Manis was invited to returned to Aspen in the summer of 2021 as assistant conductor, where he conducted two programs with the Aspen Chamber Symphony. 

Mr. Manis studied cello and conducting at the Colburn School, where he conducted outreach concerts in public schools across Los Angeles and performed Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto as soloist with conductor Robert Spano. A student of the late Larry Rachleff he completed his Master of Music degree in 2019 at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

MM, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Donald Schleicher ’77 MMus is Artist-in-Residence and Director of Orchestras at the Bienen School of Music, where he conducts the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra.

He previously served for 26 years as Director of Orchestras at the University of Illinois, where he was awarded the title of Daniel J. Perrino Professor Emeritus, School of Music, College of Fine and Applied Arts. Other previous positions include Resident Conductor at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Music Director and Conductor of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director and Principal Opera Conductor for the Pine Mountain Music Festival. At the outset of his career, he spent seven years as a high school band director in Williamsville, New York, and two years as Director of Bands at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. In addition, he served as both Associate Director of Bands and Associate Director of Orchestras at the University of Michigan.

Schleicher has conducted the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, the Daegu (South Korea) Symphony Orchestra, the Incheon (South Korea) Philharmonic, the Gwangju Symphony (South Korea), the Guiyang (China) Symphony, the Orquesta Filarmonica de la UNAM of Mexico City, the South Dakota Symphony, and the orchestras of Bridgeport, Tallahassee, and Lansing. He has appeared as a guest conductor at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and served as a cover conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

He is frequently invited to lead performances or provide conducting master classes at many of the country’s major music schools such as the Oberlin Conservatory, Eastman School of Music, Baylor University, University of Minnesota, Ithaca College, Ohio State University, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. As an enthusiastic advocate of public school music education, Mr. Schleicher has conducted All-State orchestras, festivals, and youth orchestras in nearly every state of the United States.

As a conducting teacher, Mr. Schleicher regularly appears as conducting clinician and is currently engaged as a lead teacher for the International Conducting Workshop and Festival as well as the Conducting Master Class and Workshop Series. Many of his former conducting students have gone on to hold prestigious conducting positions with orchestras and opera companies across the globe.

Giang Vo holds a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from Oklahoma City University. His primary teachers were Dr. Benjamin Shute and Dr. Sophia Ro, and he also studied historical performance and harpsichord with Anastasia Abu Bakar. He participated in several violin master classes with renowned artists Noah Bendix-Balgley and Sheryl Staples. Before coming to Northwestern, Vo was co-artistic director and violinist of the Oklahoma Baroque Orchestra. He began his conducting education with Professor Jeffrey Grogan, and studied privately with Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, where he enjoyed being the apprentice conductor for several of their Classics concerts. Vo is a student of Donald Schleicher, and serves as a graduate assistant conductor of the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra and assistant conductor of the Northwestern Philharmonia.

Praised by the New York Times as an “excellent young pianist,” Chelsea Wang has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout North America in venues including Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, New York’s Merkin Hall, Kimmel Center’s Perelman Hall, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Rockefeller University, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, the Orford Music Festival in Orford, Quebec, and more. She has performed extensively in Europe and Asia, appearing in venues including Konzerthaus Berlin, Munich’s Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, Konzertsaal at Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber, Dresden Hochschule fur Musik, Auditori Teulada Moraira in Spain, Chamber Hall of Warsaw Philharmonic, Seoul Arts Center, and Taitung Cultural Performing Arts Center. She is a prizewinner and finalist of many national and international piano competitions including the Seoul International Piano competition, Washington International Piano Competition, New York International Piano Competition, Schubert Club Scholarship Competition, and many more.

Wang made her orchestral debut at the age of six and has performed with many orchestras since then including the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New Orleans Civic Symphony, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra and the Fort Dodge Symphony Orchestra, among others. Her festival appearances include the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, Bravo!Vail, Tippet Rise Art Center, Music Academy of the West, PianoTexas, Fontainebleau, Music from Angel Fire, Four Seasons Winter Workshop, Banff, Amalfi Coast, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals.

Chelsea has collaborated alongside Ida Kavafian, Ani Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, Peter Wiley, Roberto Diaz, Anne-Marie McDermott, Anton Nel, Hsin-Yun Huang, Yu-Chien Tseng, Arnaud Sussmann, Kristin Lee, Matthew Lipman, Yoojin Jang, Dmitri Murrath, and other inspirational mentors. She has also had the honor of working with many notable musicians and chamber groups including Richard Goode, Gary Graffman, Robert McDonald, Seymour Lipkin, Arie Vardi, Aldo Ciccolini, John Perry, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Andre Watts, Jonathan Biss, Miriam Fried, Leonidas Kavakos, eighth blackbird, Emerson Quartet, and Tokyo String Quartet, among others. Radio appearances include What Makes It Great with host Rob Kapilow and NPR’s From the Top, along with programs on New York’s WQXR, Philadelphia’s WHYY Public Radio, and other programs in Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota.

A native of West Des Moines, Iowa, Ms. Wang is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she studied with Meng-Chieh Liu and Ignat Solzhenitsyn and was awarded the prestigious Sergei Rachmaninoff Award upon graduation. She received her Master of Music degree and Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory under the tutelage of Leon Fleisher and Yong-Hi Moon, and is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music with James Giles.