Artistic Staff & Musicians

Of his professional debut, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Daily Telegraph of London wrote, "Contact with the orchestra seemed immediate, the result a reading in which the playing responded keenly to gestures which themselves were expressive both of the symphony's fiery vigor and of its finer nuances. Christopher Zimmerman revealed a sharp interpretative profile and control of orchestral timbre ... a most auspicious London debut." Critics have continued to sing Zimmerman's praises, most recently for his performances as Music Director of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra "-- a crisp baton technique, sure cues and strong body language - all mercifully without mannerisms or artifice -- he drew shimmering pianissimi or volcanic utterance from the orchestra in all the works –" and in guest engagements in Europe and the Americas, with recent appearances in Venezuela, Finland, Prague and Mexico, as well as closer to home in the U.S.

William Hudson's remarkable 36-year tenure as Music Director made possible this orchestra's artistic success. Under his leadership, the orchestra grew from the small, volunteer, community orchestra he inherited in 1971 to the outstanding professional orchestra it is today - the pride of Fairfax County and one of the finest regional orchestras in the U.S. Theodore Libby* has written that "a large part of the Fairfax success story is having a conductor of William Hudson's caliber." After a performance during his last season with the FSO, Washington Post music critic Mark Estren noted, "Hudson conducted at a leisurely pace, and the orchestra provided ensemble work of great beauty."

Glenn S. Quader

A native of Washington, DC, Glenn Quader is rapidly gaining national recognition as a dynamic and versatile conductor. Equally adept in the classical, jazz and popular idioms, Glenn Quader appears extensively as a conductor, performer and session musician in the United States and Europe, placing him in consistently high demand both on concert stages and in recording studios. Mr. Quader studied at the Peabody Institute of the John Hopkins University and the universities of Indiana, Illinois and Miami, and holds a conducting diploma, awarded by Sicily's Catania International Conducting Institute. His principal conducting teachers include Gustav Meier, Ovidiu Balan and James Brooks-Bruzzese, while intensive workshops were undertaken with Marin Alsop, Jorma Panula, James Litton, Larry Rachleff and David Loebel.

George Etheridge

For more than thirty years, George Etheridge has enjoyed a varied and distinguished career as a conductor, performer and educator in the metropolitan Washington area. Educated at the University of Michigan and the Paris Conservatory, Mr. Etheridge first came to the Washington area as Assistant Professor of Saxophone at the University of Maryland. He has performed as a Saxophone soloist at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Constitution Hall, The Smithsonian Institute and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.