About the Bangor Smphony Orchestra
The Bangor Symphony Orchestra has been providing live music for the people of Bangor since 1896 and hasn't missed a season since. From Beethoven to Tchaikovsky, old and new, the Bangor Symphony has something for everyone this season. The Bangor Symphony begins its 113th season in late September, 2008 with its classical series of music, holiday favorites and summer POPS programs.
From Shanghai Concert Hall to New York's Carnegie Hall, Maestro Xiao-Lu Li is renowned as a symphonic conductor and concert violinist. Maestro Li has been a guest conductor with nearly 20 symphonies worldwide, including the China National Symphony Orchestra in Beijing, where he was also Chief Conductor; the New Polish Philharmonic Orchestra; the Greensboro (NC) Symphony; the Municipal Symphony Orchestra of Caracas and the Symphony Orchestra of Maricaibo, Venezuela.
He arrived in the U.S. in 1983 after being awarded a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1986, he became a full-time professor of violin and the director of the University Orchestra at North Carolina State University. He moved on to the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he served as music director and conductor from 1992 - 2002.
Maestro Li has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood and in the ASOL Symphony magazine, both of which recognized his success as a builder of orchestras, his talent for audience development and fund-raising and his exceptional business acumen.
In 1988, he received an Outstanding Artist award from the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In 1997, Louisiana Governor Murphy J. Foster honored Maestro Li with the Outstanding Professional Artist award and appointed Li to the Louisiana Music Commission. In 2003, Maestro Li was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for his work with the China National Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to his work with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, Xiao-Lu Li is the music director & conductor of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra. He and his wife Yang Yang, who is a violinist, have two daughters, Jacqueline and Christina.
This is Maestro Li's sixth season on the podium.
Just as individual students profit from a change of teacher after a certain time, so an organization matures and is raised to a higher level of competence under new direction and leadership. This is happening with the BSO under Xiao-Lu Li. The community is richer for it.
Win Pusey, The Ellsworth American.