Click here for a digital copy of tonight’s program notes.

Below, find the full bio of each past PSO Music Director that will be joining us tonight.

Bruce Hangen
(1976 – 1986)
I. Allegro ma non troppo; un poco maestoso

Bruce Hangen is Director of Orchestral Activities and Professor of Conducting at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Boston, Massachusetts, and Artistic Director and Conductor of the Vista Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly Orchestra of Indian Hill) in Groton, Massachusetts. Previously Music Director of the Portland and Omaha Symphony Orchestras, Hangen also was co-founder and conductor of the Portland (Maine) Opera Repertory Theatre (now MaineOpera).  Hangen also has conducted pops concerts extensively, including a 20-year relationship with the Boston Pops Orchestra as Principal Pops Guest Conductor. As guest conductor he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, the Utah and Virginia and Florida Orchestra/Symphonies among others.  A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Hangen holds an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of New England.

Toshiyuki Shimada
(1986 – 2006)
II. Molto vivace

TOSHIYUKI SHIMADA is currently Music Director and Conductor of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra in New London; Music Director and Conductor of the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes; and Music Director and Conductor of the New Britain Symphony Orchestra.  Previously held appointments include Music Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra of Yale University (2005-19), Music Director Laureate of the Portland Symphony Orchestra (Maine) (1986 to 2006), Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony (1981-86) and since 1998 he has served as Principal Conductor of the Vienna Modern Masters recording label in Austria.

Internationally he has frequently been on the podium of La Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco, in Guadalajara, Mexico, and continues close association with Turkish Orchestras, including the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, the Borsan Istanbul Philharmonic, the Izmir State Symphony Orchestra, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra and the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared in Austrian Radio Kulturhaus, in Vienna, with the MUK Symphony Orchestra, and in 2017 he led the Yale Symphony Orchestra on the highly successful Russian Tour, followed by the tours of Brazil, Turkey and Italy. Innumerable guest conducting appearances include the Slovak Philharmonic, NÖ Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna, L’Orchestre National de Lille in France, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival.

In 2018, as a peace mission, Maestro Shimada conducted a nationally televised concert at the DMZ, South Korea, with the Lindenbaum Festival Orchestra, and the following summer, he has appeared with the same orchestra in Jeju Island for the commemoration of the Massacre 4.3.

North American conducing appearances include the Houston Symphony, the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the San José Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Cambiata Soloists, a contemporary music ensemble in Houston, the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra at Rice University, and the YMF Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles.  Prestigious collaborations include artists such as Itzhak Perlman, André Watts, Peter Serkin, Emmanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Idil Biret, Janos Starker, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Cho-Liang Lin, Sir James Galway, Barry Tuckwell, and Dame Evelyn Glennie.  He has also collaborated with Willie Nelson, Doc Severinsen and Marvin Hamlisch.

Maestro Shimada has had the good fortune to study with many distinguished conductors of the past and the present, including Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Herbert Blomstedt, Hans Swarovsky, and Michael Tilson Thomas.  In 1979 he was a finalist in International Herbert von Karajan conducting competition in Berlin, and a Fellow Conductor in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute in 1983. In addition, he was named Ariel Musician of the Year in 2003 by Ariel Records, and received the ASCAP award in 1989.  He graduated from California State University, Northridge, studying with David Whitwell and Lawrence Christianson, and attended the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna, Austria.

Consistently recognized as an integral and beloved member of every community he joins, Maestro Shimada has received recognitions from the Portland Fire Department’s Merit Award, the Maine Publicity Bureau Cultural Award, and the Italian Heritage Society Cultural Award. He has had a number of state and city holidays named in his honor: Toshiyuki Shimada Day in Houston, TX; Toshiyuki Shimada Week in Portland, Maine; Toshiyuki Shimada Day in the State of Maine; and Toshiyuki Shimada Day in the State of Connecticut. In May 2006 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Fine Arts by Maine College of Arts.

Maestro Shimada records for the Naxos and the Vienna Modern Masters labels, has made fifteen CDs with the Moravian Philharmonic, in Czech Republic. He also records for Capstone Records, Querstand-VKJK (Germany), and Albany Records. His Paul Hindemith CD of the complete piano concerti with the famed Turkish pianist, Idil Biret, was released in 2013. His Music from the Vatican with the Prague Chamber Orchestra and Chorus is available through iTunes and Rhapsody.

A sought after educator he has been Associate Professor of Conducting with Yale School of Music and Department of Music, Director of the Orchestra Activity at Connecticut College, a faculty member of Rice University (Houston), the University of Southern Maine; and served as Artist Faculty at the Houston Institute of Aesthetic Study. He has conducted All State Honor and Regional Honor Orchestras for Connecticut, California, New York, Maine and Massachusetts. He was one of the distinguish speakers at the Chopin Symposium 2010, at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. He has  been teaching at the New York Conducting Workshop, and he has also served as a Board Member of the International Conductors Guild.

Eckart Preu
(2019 – Present)
III. Adagio molto e cantabile
IV. Presto – Allegro assai – Allegro assai vivace

Eckart Preu is the Music Director of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra (CA), and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (OH). Previously, he was the Music Director of the Spokane Symphony (WA) and the Stamford Symphony (CT), Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony (VA), and Resident Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra. Also, Preu served as Music Director of the Orchestre International de Paris.

Career highlights include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Sorbonne in Paris, a live broadcast with the Jerusalem Symphony, and the world premiere of Letters from Lincoln as his first commercial recording – a work commissioned by the Spokane Symphony from Michael Daugherty, featuring baritone soloist Thomas Hampson. He has collaborated with internationally-renowned soloists including Sarah Chang, Anne Akiko Meyers, Jean-Phillipe Collard, Vladimir Feltsman, Horacio Gutiérrez, Leila Josefowicz, Louis Lortie, and Richard Stoltzman

In addition, Preu has conducted the Jerusalem Symphony (Israel), Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Philharmonic Orchestra of Bogota (Columbia), Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco (Mexico), Auckland Philharmonia (New Zealand), and the Symphony Orchestra of Tenerife in Spain. Preu was a PSO guest conductor in the 2010-11 season.

A native of Germany, Preu came to the United States as the winner of the National Conducting Competition of the German Academic Exchange Service (1996) to study with Harold Farberman at the Hartt School of Music, where he also received the Karl Boehm Scholarship. In Germany, he earned a Master’s degree in conducting from the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar studying under Gunter Kahlert and Nicolás Pasquet. He also studied under Jean-Sébastien Béreau at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in France. Preu’s education was made possible by scholarships from the Herbert von Karajan Foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the French Ministry of Culture. Preu’s early musical training was in piano and voice. At age ten he became a member of the Boys’ choir Dresdner Kreuzchor and went on to work with them as soloist and assistant conductor. Preu currently resides in Spokane, Washington.