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John Mauceri, director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra
in Los Angeles and music director of the Pittsburgh Opera, has been
elected chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts by the Board
of Governors of the 16-campus University of North Carolina. UNC
President Erskine Bowles placed Mauceri�s name in nomination during the board�s regular May meeting. Mauceri, 60, will assume
his new duties July 1, succeeding Gretchen Bataille, who has served as
interim chancellor since Wade Hobgood stepped down from the post in June
2005.
One of the world�s most accomplished conductors, writers, arrangers, and recording artists, Mauceri has enjoyed a long and varied career that spans music, theater, film, and academia. His long list of professional honors include the Grammy, Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk, Edison, Emmy, Diapason d�Or, Cannes Classique, Billboard, and four Deutsche Schallplatten awards. In recommending Mauceri [mao-CHAIR-ee] to the Board of Governors, Bowles said: �John Mauceri personifies what the North Carolina School of the Arts is all about and what its students aspire to become. With his phenomenal artistic talent, his demonstrated passion for the performing arts, and his professional relationships around the globe, he has the rare potential to take the School of the Arts to a whole new level. Bringing John Mauceri to Winston-Salem is a real coup for this University and the state.� Last September, Mauceri announced that he would be stepping down as director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra this summer after his 16^th season. He will then become founding director the Bowl Orchestra and is expected to return for concerts in future seasons. As NCSA Chancellor, he will continue to work with the greatest artistic institutions in the world, while creating projects at the School that will enable its students to collaborate with performers and creators at the very forefront of their fields. He is scheduled to perform Gounod�s /Romeo et Juliette/ at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in November and will return for this eighth consecutive season with Leipzig�s Gewandhaus Orchestra in January. In addition, two new recordings, Danny Elfman�s /Serenada Schizophrana/ (Sony Classics) and Gershwin�s /Porgy and Bess/ (Decca), will be released this season. Born and raised in New York City, Mauceri developed an early love of music and as a child attended many of the great historic performances on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1967, he graduated /cum laude/ from Yale University with an undergraduate degree in music theory and composition, winning the Wrexham Prize for highest musical achievement, and the Francis Vernan Prize for Composition. He received a master of philosophy degree in music theory from Yale in 1971. Only a year into his graduate studies, Mauceri was appointed music director of the Yale Symphony orchestra, and he remained on Yale�s faculty for the next 15 years, building the orchestra to international recognition. He made his professional operatic conducting debut in at Wolf Trap Farm in Virginia in 1973, and his orchestral conducting debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic the following year. Over the course of his storied career, he has served as music director of the Kennedy Center�s Washington Opera (1979-82), music director of orchestras for the Kennedy Center (1979-91), music director of Carnegie Hall�s American Symphony (1985-87), music director of the Scottish Opera (1987-93), music director of the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy (1995-98), director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra (1991- ) and music director of the Pittsburgh Opera (2001- ). He is the first American ever to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. Over the past three decades, Mauceri has appeared with scores of the world�s major symphonies, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic (London), the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia (Rome), the National Orchestra of France, the National Orchestra of Portugal in Lisbon, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, among others. The more than 25 international opera companies he has conducted include the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the Spoleto Festival (Italy), the Deutsche Oper (Berlin), and the l�Opera de Monte Carlo. He also has earned an enviable track record on Broadway as a music director, music supervisor, or co-producer. Beginning in 1971, Mauceri enjoyed a close 18-year association with the legendary Leonard Bernstein, and at his invitation, Mauceri edited, supervised, and conducted numerous Bernstein works�many of them premieres. One of the world�s most accomplished recording artists, Mauceri has made some 70 recordings of operas, symphonic works, and Broadway cast albums, and he also conducted the soundtrack to the motion picture /Evita/. He also has been involved as host, conductor, writer, or guest on numerous television and/or radio programs celebrating music and theater. Throughout much of his professional career, Mauceri has been a principal force behind the movement to preserve two of America�s great art forms�the American musical and the music created for the American cinema. He also writes frequently on opera, musical theater, and music for film and can be seen on a number of DVD releases of classic films. Mauceri and his wife, Betty, currently live in New York City. Their son, Benjamin, is director of Business and Legal Affairs at Comedy Central. (Images provided by the NC School of the Arts.)
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