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Nashville Symphony Announces New Assistant Conductor Vinay Parameswaran

Nashville Symphony is thrilled to announce the appointment of Assistant Conductor Vinay Parameswaran (pronounced “Par-a-MAYSH-wuh-run”). In this role, Parameswaran will be responsible for conducting all of the orchestra’s education and community engagement programs, including Young People’s Concerts for schoolchildren and the Saturday-morning Pied Piper Children’s Series. In addition, he will serve as the cover conductor for Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero and will have other opportunities to conduct the orchestra, including the Nashville Symphony’s March 18 performance with the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman.
 
“We are delighted to have this immensely talented young conductor join the Nashville Symphony,” says Nashville Symphony Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero. “His skill and his quick rapport with the musicians made him a natural fit for our orchestra. This position will give Vinay the opportunity to strengthen his conducting skills and build both his administrative and artistic expertise, with the goal of being a music director for a symphony orchestra in the future.”
 
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Parameswaran is a 2013 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Otto-Werner Mueller as the Albert M. Greenfield Fellow. He comes to the orchestra with hands-on experience, having conducted the Curtis Opera Theater in productions of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and Mozart’s The Magic Flute, followed by appearances with the Vermont Symphony conducting two double-concertos with distinguished violinists Jaime Laredo and Jennifer Koh. He concluded last concert season with appearances at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, the Kennedy Center and Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, also featuring Jamie Laredo and Jennifer Koh, as part of the “Curtis on Tour” program. 
 
“When I learned about the Nashville Symphony’s Assistant Conductor position, I was very interested because I knew it was a great orchestra with a beautiful concert hall, and I knew this was a place where I’d gain a lot artistically and learn from some of the best in the business,” Parameswaran says. “I was excited about the opportunity to work with Giancarlo Guerrero, a conductor whom I've admired for a long time. I also knew that the orchestra has a mission of commissioning new works, which is something I’m excited about. I love the fact that Nashville is a city where music is ingrained in the culture, and having artists like Ben Folds and Victor Wooten perform with the orchestra shows that the Nashville Symphony is part of the fabric of the overall music scene.”
 
Parameswaran will conduct the Nashville Symphony’s next Young People’s Concerts on February 11, 12 and 18 at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, followed by a February 22 Pied Piper Children’s Series performance. “I love working with children,” he says. “When I auditioned for this position, Giancarlo said something that really stayed with me: ‘If we don’t take our education work seriously, we won’t have an audience in 50 years.’ In my role as assistant conductor, my goal is to make connections between music and what kids are learning in school, so that music will connect with whatever path they take in life.”
 
Parameswaran graduated with honors from Brown University with a major in music and political science. While attending Brown, he began his conducting studies with Paul Phillips and is the only student to win Brown University’s Concerto Competition in two different instruments: piano in 2009 and timpani in 2007.