Hartt Community Division Welcomes New Celesti Sondato Conductor Bryan Zaros for 2012-13 Season

The Hartt School Community Division (HCD) announces Celesti Sondato's 4th season and a new music director, Bryan Zaros of Avon, Conn. An accomplished and award winning conductor, Mr. Zaros has conducted choirs in nine different countries and has performed at some of the most celebrated performance venues, including the Metropolitan Opera House, Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, and on NBC's Today show. Celesti Sondato is the HCD Adult Chamber Choir, an auditioned SATB ensemble with a tradition of performing varied choral literature, premiering new works, and collaborating with local ensembles throughout the year.

Celesti Sondato celebrates its 2012-2013 season with renewed direction, energy, and vision. While serving through its varied concert work featuring a diverse and dynamic repertoire, the ensemble also plans to take part in collaborations with other ensembles and service projects benefiting important causes to the community. The art of choral music can be a powerful force of unity, harmony, and peace and, with these ideals at its core, a new year and a new beginning for the ensemble is ignited.

Bryan Zaros is a young American conductor continually recognized for his "strong musical imagination" and "deep sense of musicality and communication." A native New Yorker, Bryan received a Bachelor of Music in Sacred Music from Westminster Choir College and a Master of Music in Conducting from the University of Michigan, where he studied under Grammy award winning conductor Dr. Jerry Blackstone.

As a member of the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus for six years, Bryan was a frequent performer on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House throughout his childhood. Performing annually with singers such as Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Sylvia McNair, Cecilia Bartoli and conductor James Levine among many others, Bryan performed in over twenty opera productions with over a hundred Metropolitan Opera performances to his credit. Featured as a soloist on national and international television and radio including Live from Lincoln Center and the Chevron Texaco Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts, Bryan has also been a guest artist on the NBC Today Show and has appeared in PBS Concert Specials with Denyce Graves and conductor Marin Alsop. As a singer, he has performed on several occasions at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Hill Auditorium, Temple Emanu-EL NYC, and the Trenton War Memorial.

Following his time at the Metropolitan Opera, Bryan grew quickly into the role of head boy chorister at the Church of the Transfiguration in New York City. At sixteen, he was appointed the Assistant Choirmaster and became a regular conductor of the Choir of Men and Boys, the oldest choir of its kind in the United States. Since then he has served as a church musician in many states, including New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Connecticut.

Recent conducting engagements have included invitations with choirs in England, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, and Slovenia. In February 2009, Bryan was a guest conductor with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Canada's premier choral ensemble, in a concert featuring songs of nature and romance. In the same year, Bryan was the only American conductor invited to compete at the 5th International Competition for Young Choral Conductors and, as such, was the official United States representative at the international event held in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has conducted a variety of established orchestras including the Mannes Orchestra, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, The Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, The Michigan Sinfonietta Orchestra, and the Charpentier Sextet. He is a recipient of awards, grants, and fellowships from Westminster Choir College, the University of Michigan, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a semi-finalist award in Choral Conducting from the American Prize.

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