Jeannine Wagar

Music Director/Conductor
E-mail: cjwagar@gmail.com

Jeannine Wagar is in her 8th year as Music Director/Conductor of the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. She is also an author, research scholar on Latin American music, producer, radio and television personality, lecturer and visionary in the field of classical music.

Wagar has worked with major artists such as: violinists, Sarah Chang, Axel Strauss, Mary Rowell from the Tango Project and Piotr Janowski; violist, Miles Hoffman; cellist, Clancy Newman; pianists, Awadagin Pratt, Jakov Kasman, Alan Chow, Chitose Okashiro, Anthony Molinaro and Scott Graham; guitarists; Sharon Isbin, Eduardo Fernandez, the Assads, Virginia Luque; mezzo soprano, Susanne Mentzer and Jaime Bernstein in "The Bernstein Beat:"

She has also worked with dance companies such as: Moscow City Ballet, James Sewell Ballet, Tulsa Ballet and the Harlem Dance Theater. In the "Pops" genre, she has worked with Glen Campbell and Cirque Orchestre from Montreal.

Wagar's upcoming concerts this September include three opening Gala concerts with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra featuring guitar soloist Sharon Isbin. She continues to conduct in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. In 2005 she conducted the Sudwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Germany. She has received international recognition in Mexico and in the Czech Republic. In Mexico she has frequently appeared as a guest conductor with noted orchestras such as the Mexican National Symphony, the Mexican State Orchestra, and the Carlos Chavez Symphony. In the Czech Republic she has conducted concerts with the Beethoven Chamber Orchestra in Opava at the Silesian Opera House and worked with the Bohuslav Philharmonic in Zlin. In the United States, she is Conductor Emeritus of the North Jersey Philharmonic where she served as Music Director/Conductor from 1994-2002.

She has written a successful book, Conductors in Conversation; 15 conductors discuss their profession, G.K. Hall, 1991, that was reprinted three times and sold at prestigious stores such as the Metropolitan Opera book store in New York City, the Juilliard School of Music book store and Barnes & Noble. The book is still being used as a textbook for conducting and is in demand internationally, though it is now out of print.

After many years of being a professional organist, Wagar changed directions. She was given a full Scholarship to Stanford University where she received a doctorate in conducting. She has also held teaching positions at Stanford University, CA, as Music Director of the Stanford Chamber Orchestra, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, Carleton College, MN, and Hofstra University, NY. Her teachers and mentors have included David Gilbert, Jorma Panula, Kirk Trevor, Mark Starr, Herbert Blomstedt and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski.