FAYETTEVILLE SYMPHONY

Music Director – Stefan Sanders

Stefan Sanders Headshot

Acclaimed conductor, audience builder, communicator and arts advocate, Stefan Sanders is thrilled to begin his fifth season as the Music Director of the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra. Stefan is also equally excited to embark on his third season as the Music Director for the Central Texas Philharmonic.  Having collaborated with an array of distinguished orchestras and guest artists, Stefan’s recent guest conducting appearances include the Sarasota Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Virginia Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, San Antonio Symphony, Stockton Symphony, Tuscaloosa Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica de Guayaquil (Ecuador), Filharmonia Warminsko-Mazurska (Poland), Filharomonia Podcarpacka (Poland), Symphoria (Syracuse, NY), Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Opera, and the Round Top International Festival Institute. Since 2017, Stefan has also served as a cover/assistant conductor for the New York Philharmonic. 

From 2014-2018 Stefan served as the Associate and Resident Conductor for the Buffalo Philharmonic, where he lead the orchestra in over 200 performances on all of the orchestra’s series. In May of 2018 and January of 2020, Stefan lead the National Orchestra of Cuba in a sold performances of the legendary film music of John Williams. Stefan also served as Principal Conductor for Arkansas’ Hot Springs Music Festival in the summer of 2018.

In 2016, Stefan was one of 5 featured conductors at the League of American Orchestras “Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview.” This prestigious conductor showcase is designed to feature talented young conductors poised for music directorships with American Orchestras and was hosted by Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony.

Prior to a career as a conductor, Stefan was an internationally renowned trombonist, having performed as a soloist in North America, Asia and Europe. His performance of Eric Ewazen’s Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra, with the Czech Philharmonic can be heard on the Albany Records label. Mr. Sanders was a member of the Buffalo Philharmonic’s trombone section for seven seasons and has performed with several orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Florida Orchestra, and the Seattle Opera’s 2001 production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Stefan was a fellow at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen under the tutelage of maestros, Larry Rachleff, Robert Spano, and Hugh Wolff.  He is a graduate of the Julliard School, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Interlochen Arts Academy. 

 

Featured Musician

Randolyn Emerson – Violin

 

Randolyn Emerson, violin, begins her ninth year with the Fayetteville Symphony (completing her first season under the conductorship of Harlan Duenow).  Born into a rich and varied musical environment – her mother was a member of the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir – Randolyn was singing for audiences by age two. After finding her mother’s old instrument in a closet, however, eight-year-old Randolyn fell in love with the violin. 

Randolyn graduated summa cum laude from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music degree, having studied violin with Oscar Chausow, longtime Utah Symphony concertmaster, and voice with Betty Jean Chipman.  Her university experience included a six-week European tour with the university’s A Capella Choir, where she soloed both as a solo violinist and a solo vocalist with the choir in historical venues such as Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, the organ loft (above the grave of composer Anton Bruckner) of St. Florian Cathedral in Linz, Austria, and Venice, Italy’s polyphonic St. Mark’s Basilica. By means of a generous scholarship, she also received excellent orchestral training at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA, under the tutelage of Maestro Maurice Abravanel, Artistic Director of the Utah Symphony for more than thirty years.

Relocating to North Carolina in 1988, Randolyn became active in many area orchestras, including the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Greensboro Symphony, North Carolina Theatre pit orchestra (25 years and counting), Tar River Orchestra, and the Raleigh and Durham Symphonies, wherein she served as each orchestra’s assistant concertmaster (and where she met her viola-playing husband, Paul).  For ten years, Randolyn was also privileged to be an extra violinist with the North Carolina Symphony.  Operas, ballets, choral oratorios, traveling Broadway shows, recordings of Robert Ward compositions, and even concerts with modern artists such as Rod Stewart, Regis Philbin, Bobby McFerrin and Clay Aiken – over the years, Randolyn’s played for them all.  She’s even made forays into fiddling, recording a CD with the bluegrass band Sweet Potato Pie and serving as a last-minute concert substitute with Lorica, the Celtic ensemble formed by WRAL-TV’s Bill Leslie.

Aside from music, Randolyn has put to good use her Master of Business Administration degree from Meredith College in Raleigh, NC, by establishingherself as a professional family history researcher and writer.  Her greatest joys, though, are always found in her faith and in her family:  sons Erik and Daniel and her always-supportive husband, Paul.

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To Educate. To Entertain. To Inspire.

The Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1956 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is a professional, regional orchestra whose mission is to educate, entertain, and inspire the citizens of the Fayetteville, North Carolina region as the leading musical resource.  Praised for its artistic excellence, the Symphony leads in the cultural and educational landscape for Fayetteville and the southeastern North Carolina region.

The Fayetteville Symphony typically performs 8 concerts during any given season performing both at Methodist University and Fayetteville State University. Partnerships with other agencies include collaborative performances with Cape Fear Regional Theatre, chamber concerts at St. John’s Episcopal Church, as well as the city’s annual Independence concert with fireworks. The Symphony brings music to the schools and the community by performing educational concerts, as well as having its own Fayetteville Symphony Youth Orchestra, after school strings and summer music camps.

This organization is supported in part by a space grant from the BB&T Term Endowment of Cumberland Community Foundation, Inc.


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Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra

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Fayetteville, NC 28301

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