About

The Assistant Conductor Competition is held annually to select students to conduct the orchestra in one of its concerts. Any person who is a current Harvard undergraduate and will be affiliated with Harvard and in residence through the end of Fall 2025 is permitted to audition.

Application

The application for the 2024-2025 season is now closed.

Auditions

A committee of the orchestra will select no more than 6 candidates to audition. This selection will be based on their past conducting credentials, as outlined in the form above. Applicants may be invited to an interview with the Music Director.
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The audition will be held on Friday, November 15, 2024, in Sanders Theater or Lowell Lecture Hall, beginning at 3:00 pm. Candidates will be informed of the results by Saturday, November 16, 2024, at 5:00 pm. The winner(s) will be selected by the Music Director on the advice of the orchestra. We expect that there will be one winner.

Each applicant will be asked to conduct and rehearse HRO on excerpts from the 2nd movement of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony (until rehearsal 6) and Mars from The Planets by Holst (until rehearsal 4) followed by questions from the orchestra. Each applicant may be asked to start with a passage of their choosing; any other passages rehearsed may be chosen by the Music Director. The overall length of the audition will be determined once the number of finalists has been decided. The Music Director reserves the right to modify the structure of any candidate’s audition at any time.

The winner is expected to attend all rehearsals of the HRO during their tenure throughout the 2025 year. They may be asked to assist the Music Director in artistic matters, lead sectionals and/or divided orchestra rehearsals, conduct first readings of new pieces, and will be expected to conduct the full orchestra if needed. They will also conduct a piece to be chosen together with the Music Director and the orchestra in either Spring 2025 or Fall 2025. The winner may also be required to enroll in an advanced conducting class with the Music Director during Spring 2025 or Fall 2025.

Past Winners

2024-2025: Enoch Li

2023-2024: Enoch Li

2022-2023: Isaac Newman & Yizhe Sun

2021-2022: Camden Archambeau

2020-2021: Cancelled due to COVID

2019-2020: Cancelled due to COVID

‍2018-2019: Caleb Shi & Soren Nyhus

2017-2018: Reuben Stern & Gordon Ma

2016-2017: Reuben Stern

2015-2016: Sasha Scolnik-Brower