Internationally acclaimed and award-winning conductor and performer John Mauceri

Internationally acclaimed and award-winning conductor and performer John Mauceri will explore the impact music has on the “commerce of creativity” during a lecture later this month at California State University, Northridge.

Mauceri, chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, founding director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and music director of Walt Disney’s Legacy Series Concerts, will give the final lecture in this year’s Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication’s Commerce of Creativity Distinguished Speaker Series, scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. on March 28 in the Kurland Lecture Hall of CSUN’s Valley Performing Arts Center.

“We are thrilled to be presenting John as a speaker in the Commerce of Creativity Series in anticipation of his return to the podium in Los Angeles at a performance at the Valley Performing Arts Center on Saturday, June 1,” said Robert Bucker, dean of the Mike Curb College. “He is a musical and artistic force of nature. At the Valley Performing Arts Center he will be creating a new series: ‘Concert/Context—Music in the Life of a Great City.’”

Mauceri’s distinguished career has taken him not only to the world’s greatest opera companies and symphony orchestras, but also the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood, as well as the halls of academia.

He has served as music director of four opera companies: Washington National Opera, Scottish Opera in Glasgow, the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy, and Pittsburgh Opera. He is the first American to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. He was the first music director of the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall after its founding director, Leopold Stokowski, with whom he studied. He was Consultant for Music Theater at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center for Performing Arts for more than a decade, and, for 15 years, he served on the faculty of Yale University. Mauceri worked closely with Leonard Bernstein for 18 years and conducted many of the composer’s premieres at Bernstein’s request.

On Broadway, Mauceri co-produced “On Your Toes,” and served as musical supervisor for Hal Prince’s production of “Candide,” as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Song and Dance.” He also conducted the orchestra for the film version of “Evita.” Among his many awards are a Tony, Grammy, Olivier and two Emmys.

Mauceri holds the lifetime title of Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which was created for him in 1991 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has written for and appeared on radio and television and has delivered keynote speeches and papers for major artistic and educational institutions, including Harvard University, the American Academy in Berlin, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Musicological Society and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Mauceri has taken the lead in the preservation and performance of many genres of music and has supervised/conducted important premiers by composers as diverse as Claude Debussy, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Paul Hindemith, Bernstein, Charles Ives and Danny Elfman. He is a leading performer of music banned by the Third Reich and especially music of Hollywood’s émigré composers.

As chancellor of University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Mauceri leads America’s first public arts conservatory. The university includes music, dance, drama, filmmaking and design and production curricula for high school, college and graduate degrees.

The Commerce of Creativity Distinguished Speaker Series began in the fall of 2011 as a way to connect members of the campus, alumni and the community with compelling and provocative storytellers who have made significant contributions to the arts and the art of business.

The lecture series is free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended. To make a reservation, visit https://www.csunalumni.com/default.aspx?Page=EVNTEventDetail&EventID=1236 or call Jennifer Reifsneider at (818) 677-7038.

California State University, Northridge’s Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication is inspired by the shared belief that art is community, communication is an art and that art and communication are essential pillars for building and maintaining community. Its programs, including those in art, music, theater, cinema and television arts and journalism, have an international reputation for graduating skilled professionals who succeed in their respected fields.

Arts and Culture, Lectures, Mike Curb College of Arts Media and Communication, Valley Performing Arts Center