Guest Conductor Leslie B. Dunner joins CCM Orchestras in Halloween concert

Leslie B. Dunner serves as the conductor of the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra, the World Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Interlochen Arts Camp. He has been Music Director of the South Shore Opera Company in Chicago since 2014. He has also served as Music Director of the Joffrey Ballet and the symphony orchestras of Annapolis, Dearborn and Nova Scotia. He spent 11 seasons at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), first as Resident, then Associate and finally as Assistant Conductor, while serving concurrently as Music Director of the DSO's youth orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra. Besides holding principal conducting positions at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Harlem Festival Orchestra and Louisville Ballet, he undertook a season as Interim Music Director of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Dunner's guest engagements with major orchestras throughout the world include two years with the Chicago Symphony and five as Cover Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, where he assisted during a four-week European tour. He has appeared with such distinguished ensembles as the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Seattle Symphony, as well as orchestras in Canada, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ukraine, Russia and South Africa. An avid ballet conductor, Dunner has taken the podiums of the American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, Michigan Opera Theatre, Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, Birmingham Royal Ballet and South African Ballet Theatre, among others.

In addition to his professional conducting work, Dunner is a dedicated music educator. He began his career in music education as Assistant Professor at Minnesota's Carleton College and has continued to lead youth orchestras throughout his career. The first American prize-winner in the Arturo Toscanini International Conducting Competition, he is also a recipient of the Leonard Bernstein American Conductors Award and the NAACP's James Weldon Johnson and Distinguished Achievement Awards.

Dunner holds a Bachelor's degree in clarinet performance from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, a Master's in music theory and musicology from Queens College at the City University of New York, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in orchestral conducting from CCM.