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Michael Luxner, Music Director and Conductor of the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra since 1996, is a native of New York and a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he earned the Bachelor of Music with High Distinction, Master of Arts, and Ph.D. degrees during the 1970’s.  He studied conducting principally with Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School in Maine and Paris, and also with Leonard Slatkin in St. Louis, Jonathan Sternberg and Gustav Meier at Eastman, and in Herbert Blomstedt’s Master Class in California.
           
Before his appointment to Millikin University, Maestro Luxner was Music Director and Conductor of the Owensboro (Kentucky) Symphony, Associate Conductor of the Savannah Symphony, and Assistant Conductor of the Colorado Philharmonic.  As a guest conductor he has worked with the Orchestra of the Olympic Theatre in Vicenza, Italy, and also with the Peoria Symphony, the Cairo Symphony in Egypt, the Louisville Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Philharmonic, Radio France, Vanderbilt University, the Universities of Wyoming and Kentucky, Old Dominion University, and orchestras in Anchorage, Adrian, Midland, Abilene, Cheyenne, and Tacoma.  He has also conducted ballet, music theatre, and contemporary chamber ensembles.

Dr. Luxner has served on the full-time faculty of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and on the part-time faculties of Georgia Southern College, Armstrong State College, and Kentucky Wesleyan College.  His published writings include analytical studies, pedagogical and popular articles, book and CD reviews, and numerous program annotations.  He has been a Fellow of the Franco-American Atlantique Foundation, a Regional Workshop presenter to the American Symphony Orchestra League, a member of the Artist’s-Initiated Review Panel of the Georgia Arts Council, and a lecturer for the Hilton Head Humanities Forum.  He is a Director of the Illinois Council of Orchestras and a former officer of the Conductors Guild, an international music service organization devoted exclusively to the advancement of the highest standards of the art and profession of conducting.

E-mail Dr. Luxner at MLuxner@mail.millikin.edu.

© 2007 Stacey Randol