The musicians of the Cornell Symphony Orchestra may include both undergraduate and graduate students, Cornell faculty, and members of the Ithaca community.
Director of Orchestras
Chris Younghoon Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea. He has studied conducting with Kenneth Kiesler at the University of Michigan. He has also been a student of Gerhard Markson at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. In the fall of 2004, Chris Kim became the director of Orchestras at Cornell University, where he conducts the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, Cornell Chamber Orchestra and guest conducts Ensemble X.
As a proponent of new music Chris founded Brave New Works,
a new music group based in Ann Arbor, MI. With BNW, he leads
about three residencies per year around the United States.
He has guest conducted new music ensembles around the world
including Divertimento Ensemble in Italy, BT Ensemble and
the Nash ensemble at the St. Magnus Festival in Scotland,
The Firebird Ensemble based in Boston, and the International
Bartok Music festival Ensemble in Hungary. During the summer
months of 2008, Chris took part in the International
Conducting Academy at Vendome, conducting the Ensemble
Orchestral de Paris in concert.
Orchestra TA for Spring 2012
Charles Cacioppo, born in Boston in 1983, is an American
composer and trumpeter, currently a doctoral student in
composition at Cornell University, where he is also a
teaching assistant and recipient of the Sage Fellowship,
studying composition with Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste,
and ethnomusicology with Steven Pond. Cacioppo's music has
been performed internationally, in Rome and Bulgaria, as
well as in the United States.
Cacioppo's music has been performed by violinist Joseph Lin,
rising-star jazz pianist Bobby Avey, the University of
Maryland Trumpet Ensemble under the direction of Chris
Gekker, Santiago Rodriguez and the Left Bank Concert
Society, The Momenta Quartet, The Argento Chamber Ensemble,
The Israeli Chamber Project, Cornell University's Festival
Chamber Orchestra, The Alba Music Festival Trumpet Ensemble
under the direction of Jeff Silberschlag, pianist Curt
Cacioppo, and by many other very fine performers. Cacioppo's
music can be heard on flute and piano duo Andrea Ceccomori
and Elitza Harbova's CD Dialogues released in 2010 on the
L.P. Records label, and on the CD Ghosts, a collection of
solo and duo compositions released in 2009 on the Beauport
Classical label.
As a youth growing up in a suburb neighboring the city of
Philadelphia, Cacioppo was able to learn from and perform
with many of the older jazz greats of the city, including
Charles Bowen Sr., Lovett Hines, Daud El-Bakara, Connie
Murray, Tony Wyatt, Vernon Lewis, Cornell Rochester, and
many others, at the same time becoming exposed to the urban
culture that fosters such music. Cacioppo continues to
concertize, now in the city of Ithaca New York, performing
straight-ahead jazz in the tradition, as well as his own
personalized brand of free improvisation. Cacioppo earned an
M.M. in Composition from the University of Maryland College
Park in 2008, where he studied composition with Robert
Gibson, and he received the Walsum Award for Excellence in
Composition from the University of Maryland the same year.
Cacioppo earned a B.M. in Composition from SUNY Purchase in
2006, where he studied composition with Dary-John Mizelle,
Joseph Hudson, and Suzanne Farrin, and trumpet with Graham
Ashton and Lee Soper.
The orchestra roster for Spring
2012 is listed below by section, in seating
order. Section leaders appear highlighted in red. The CCO
audition results are also available.