John Mauceri

John Mauceri launched his professional podium career in 1973 and earned recognition as one of the leading conductors spanning the final decades of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first. His engagements have included leading productions at the New York City Opera, Scottish Opera, and Teatro Regio in Turin, while his symphonic work has encompassed the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and numerous additional ensembles throughout North America and Europe. He has simultaneously championed the preservation and performance of the American musical theater repertoire.

Mauceri’s earliest musical instruction took place at the piano under his grandfather Baldassare Mauceri, a composer, teacher, and conductor. He pursued an undergraduate degree in music theory and composition at Yale College. After completing one year of graduate study there, he was named music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and continued on the faculty for fifteen years. In 1978, at Richard Rodgers’s request, he established the foundation for New York University’s Department of Music Theater, which quickly ranked among the country’s strongest programs.

Invited to Tanglewood in 1971 as a conducting fellow, Mauceri worked with Bruno Maderna, Colin Davis, Seiji Ozawa, Gunther Schuller, and Leonard Bernstein. He subsequently served as Bernstein’s assistant for eighteen years, during which he introduced numerous works by the composer.

His first professional engagement occurred at the 1973 Wolf Trap Festival, where he conducted Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street. From 1979 to 1991 he served as music director of the Kennedy Center orchestras, a post that also encompassed the Washington National Opera. Between 1987 and 1993 he held the same title at Scottish Opera, after which he led Teatro Regio in Turin from 1995 to 1999 and the Pittsburgh Opera from 2001 to 2006.

Parallel to his operatic activity, Mauceri built a substantial symphonic profile. He made his concert debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1974 and later maintained an eight-year association with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In 1985 he became music director of New York’s American Symphony Orchestra, the first person to hold the post since Leopold Stokowski’s departure in 1972. He founded the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in 1991 and remained its music director until 2006.

Throughout his tenure at the Kennedy Center, Mauceri obtained National Endowment for the Arts grants that enabled the restoration of Broadway scores from the 1930s and 1940s. As a trustee of the National Institute for Music Theater, he advocated for the systematic cataloging of surviving materials by Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Rodgers, Arlen, and Porter. In 1989 Leonore Gershwin commissioned him to record the complete works of George and Ira Gershwin for the Library of Congress; the resulting 1991 release of Girl Crazy received an Edison Award and was named High Fidelity Magazine’s Record of the Year.

In 2006 Mauceri was appointed chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, a position he held until 2013.

His honors include the 1983 Tony Award for Best Revival for On Your Toes and the 1987 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for the 1982 New York City Opera cast of Candide.