Michael Slon, Music Director
Active as a conductor of choral, orchestral, and operatic repertoire, Michael Slon has served as Music Director of the Oratorio Society of Virginia since 2011. In that time, he has advanced the mission and musicianship of the chorus, and created a series of new artistic partnerships, including a 2014 semi-staged production of Bernstein’s Candide with Ash Lawn (now Charlottesville) Opera, performances with the Roanoke Symphony, Wintergreen Music Festival, Staunton Music Festival, Charlottesville Ballet, and regional youth choruses, and a “Together in Song” community event to benefit local charities. He is also Associate Professor and Director of Choral Music at the University of Virginia, where he conducts the University Singers, UVA Chamber Singers and guest conducts the Charlottesville Symphony.
Having led the Singers and Symphony in a gala performance in front of 20,000 for UVA’s 2017 Bicentennial Launch Celebration (which included Copland’s Appalachian Spring with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and a feature on regional PBS), he and the Singers presented the regional premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass at UVA in fall 2018. His UVA ensembles have also performed for composer Philip Glass, and the creators of Les Misérables during their UVA residencies, and toured widely in the U.S. and Europe. Recent repertoire with the choruses has included Bach’s St. John Passion and Magnificat, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, the Brahms and Rutter Requiems, Verdi’s La traviata, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, and the world premiere of an Adolphus Hailstork-Rita Dove commission – The World Called – for the Oratorio Society’s 50th anniversary.
His opera and musical theatre engagements have included a production of Stephen Paulus’s The Three Hermits with Buffalo’s Opera Sacra, regional premieres of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George and Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza with the Heritage Theatre Festival, South Pacific and The Magic Flute with Ash Lawn Opera, and Into the Woods and Bernstein’s Mass at Indiana University. While serving as Interim Director of the Charlottesville Symphony, he led works including Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, and in 2005, also co-created the University Singers-Symphony Family Holiday Concerts. He has also participated as an artist with the Staunton Music Festival, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, and Wintergreen Music Festival, and as a musician committed to the education of young musicians, is active as a guest conductor for honors choirs and orchestras. In this time of COVID-19, he likewise remains committed both to the fundamental values of the choral art, and to developing new platforms to engage singers and audiences.
Prior to UVA, he served as visiting conducting faculty at the Oberlin Conservatory, and assistant conductor of the Cornell University choruses and Cincinnati's May Festival Chorus, where he prepared and co-prepared choruses for concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. His ensembles have worked with artists including Moses Hogan, Bobby McFerrin, Meredith Monk, Peter Phillips, and Franz Welser-Möst, and commissioned composers including Stephen Paulus, Forrest Pierce, Adolphus Hailstork, Judith Shatin, and Eric Whitacre. Also a pianist, composer, and writer, Dr. Slon holds degrees from the Indiana University School of Music and Cornell University. His first book, Songs from the Hill, has been cited in a variety of other publications, and his work on Leonard Bernstein has recently appeared in the Choral Journal and also won the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Julius Herford Prize. As a composer, he had a 2019 residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and recently had work presented by the Vocalis Chamber Choir at NYC’s Merkin Hall, and at the 2018 ACDA Eastern Convention.