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Anthony Dean Griffey to Join Music Faculty as Artist-in-Residence We are delighted to welcome internationally renowned tenor Anthony Dean Griffey to our faculty this year as artist-in-residence. His affiliation with UNC-Chapel Hill adds to the strong reputation in the Arts which Carolina is building. During the year, Mr. Griffey will be coaching and teaching master classes to our voice students and to our Kenan Scholars’ cohort, working with chamber music students and UNC Opera students, and speaking in select academic classes.
Announcing the 2009-2010 Kenan Music Scholars The Music Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is delighted to announce the appointment of the following four Kenan Music Scholars set to enter the university in fall 2009. They will join our eight current Kenan Music Scholars in this exciting and innovative program.
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Music Department Faculty

Tonu Kalam

Tonu Kalam
Professor

Office: 3123 Kenan Music Building
Email: kalam@mindspring.com
Phone: 919-966-1330

Tonu Kalam (Professor) serves as Music Director and Conductor of the UNC Symphony Orchestra and has taught instrumental conducting at Carolina since 1988. Educated at Harvard University (A.B., 1969), the University of California at Berkeley (M.A., 1971), and the Curtis Institute of Music (Certificate, 1973), he is also Music Director and Conductor of the Longview Symphony Orchestra in Texas, Founder and Music Director of the Chapel Hill Chamber Orchestra, and has guest conducted orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and in Europe.

 

Prof. Kalam was born of Estonian parents and has lived in the United States since the age of two. Trained as a conductor, pianist and composer, he studied with conductor Max Rudolf and composers Leon Kirchner and Andrew Imbrie. His summer credits include fellowships at Tanglewood and Aspen as well as many years at the Marlboro Music Festival, where he conducted the Beethoven Choral Fantasy on five occasions at the invitation of legendary pianist Rudolf Serkin.

 

He has appeared as guest conductor with the North Carolina Symphony, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, and the East Texas Symphony Orchestra, among others, and has served as Music Director of the New England Chamber Orchestra in Boston. He was a prizewinner in the first Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Young Conductor's Competition and was also a finalist in the prestigious Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program.

 

In 1994 Prof. Kalam made his European debut conducting the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in Tallinn and he was immediately reengaged for festival appearances the following year. He returned to Europe in 1997 to guest conduct Finland's Oulu Symphony Orchestra and in 2004 he made his fourth Estonian appearance in the "Tubin and His Time" festival.

Tonu Kalam has conducted over 135 opera performances for companies such as the Shreveport Opera, the Lake George Opera Festival and the Nevada Opera. For seven years he was Music Director of the Illinois Opera Theatre at the University of Illinois and he has also filled short-term appointments as visiting associate professor and director of the orchestra programs at the University of Miami in Florida and St. Olaf College in Minnesota. As an educator, he has conducted all-state, all-region and all-county orchestras in New York, North Carolina, Texas and Montana, as well as the Mallarmé Youth Chamber Orchestra in North Carolina.

In 1984 Prof. Kalam began a long-term association with the renowned Kneisel Hall summer chamber music festival in Blue Hill, Maine, where he spent 13 years in various administrative and musical capacities, as Executive Director, Summer Program Director, Artist-Faculty pianist, and chamber music coach. In addition to his conducting activities, he performs regularly as a pianist and chamber musician.

Having served 10 years on the board of directors of the Conductors Guild, including a term as president, he is now a member of the Advisory Council of that organization, which is devoted to the advancement of the art of conducting and to serving the artistic and professional needs of conductors worldwide.
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