Conductor Michael Stern is hailed as "one of America's finest conductors" (Classical Net). He is Founding Artistic Director of Iris Orchestra as well as Music Director of the Kansas City Symphony and the newly appointed Music Director of the Stamford Symphony.
Stern is a passionate advocate for new American music. Under Stern’s direction, Iris Orchestra has commissioned and premiered works by William Bolcom, Chris Brubeck, Richard Danielpour, Stephen Hartke, Edgar Meyer, Jonathan Leshnoff, Adam Schoenberg, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, in addition to Bruce Adolphe’s I Will Not Remain Silent.
Stern is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying under the noted conductor and scholar Max Rudolf. Stern co-edited the third edition of Rudolf’s famous textbook, The Grammar of Conducting, and also edited a volume of Rudolf’s collected writings and correspondence. He is also a graduate of Harvard University, where he earned a degree in American history.
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