Fairfax Symphony Orchestra 2007-2008 Season

Meet William Hudson, Music Director

The 2007-2008 season honors William Hudson, whose remarkable 36-year tenure as Music Director has made possible this orchestra's artistic success. Under his leadership, the orchestra has grown from the small volunteer community orchestra he inherited in 1971 into the outstanding professional orchestra it is today - the pride of Fairfax County and one of the finest regional orchestras in the U.S. as noted in The New York Times by music critic Ted Libbey, "The Fairfax Symphony is in a league by itself."

Under his leadership the orchestra has performed at the Kennedy Center with internationally renowned soloists and at Wolf Trap with such popular performers as Ella Fitzgerald. In addition, Hudson has led the orchestra to establish a summer residency at the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival, win the Governor's Award as the outstanding musical organization in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and produce a CD that is enjoying vigorous sales throughout the United States, Canada, England, and Japan. He has been called "an exemplary musician and conductor" by Joseph McLellan of The Washington Post.

Theodore Libby, former music critic of The New York Times, now with Musical America, has written that "a large part of the Fairfax success story is having a conductor of William Hudson's caliber." In November, 2001 he was invited to be guest conductor of the Taipei Symphony in Taiwan.

William Hudson's early professional training was with Anthony Gigliotti of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and with faculty members of the Curtis Institute of Music. He holds degrees from Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. As a conducting student at Tanglewood Music Festival he studied with Max Rudolph and Erich Leinsdorf. While still a student, Mr. Hudson's early conducting experience included a two-year cycle of Bach cantatas, Mozart and Haydn Masses, and Handel oratorios with singers and instrumentalists of the Curtis Institute.

In performance with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, and as guest conductor, Mr. Hudson has enjoyed successful collaborations with many of the leading soloists of our time. Among these are Jorge Bolet, Rudolph Firkusny, Eugene Fodor, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Gary Graffman, Ida Kavafian, Lili Krauss, Lorin Hollander, Eugene Istomin, Ruth Laredo, Jaime Laredo, Leonard Pennario, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Santiago Rodriguez, Aaron Rosand, Andre Michel Schub, Joseph Silverstein, Janos Starker, Richard Stoltzman, and Barry Tuckwell. Mr. Hudson's collaboration with principal players of the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra include Dale Clevenger, John de Lancie, Bernard Garfield, Adolph Herseth, Anthony Gigliotti, Gilbert Johnson, Mason Jones, Nolan Miller, Joseph Robinson, Sol Schoenbach, and Richard Woodhams. Well-known personalities appearing with the orchestra have included Doc Severinsen, Marvin Hamlisch, Roger Mudd, Joan Fontaine, James Carville and Mary Matalin.

Mr. Hudson has served as a faculty member of the American Symphony Orchestra League's conducting workshops. Since 1979, he has been Music Director of the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival, where the Fairfax Symphony is orchestra-in-residence.