Where the Madison Symphony Orchestra stands on its director search

25 November 2025

The Madison Symphony Orchestra has a big decision to make.

After 32 years, John DeMain will step down as the MSO’s musical director following its centennial season. The orchestra needs to select a new leader.

Over the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, the orchestra has invited seven guest conductors to stand at the podium in Overture Hall and demonstrate why they should lead the MSO into its second century.

The stakes are high.

DeMain is only the fourth person to hold the position. During his tenure, he shepherded the orchestra from the Madison Civic Center into Overture Hall, and ushered in a more professionalized MSO and a high level of play.

Second only to a new hall, getting a new director is of key importance for an orchestra. Beyond selecting and programming music, running rehearsals and leading performances, the new musical director of the MSO must also, as executive director Robert Reed said, “actively engage with the community and be ready to roll up their sleeves and realize their vision.”

Reed said he “hopes that the new music director will bring the level of the orchestra higher, not just artistically … that they will help in expanding the people we reach and change people’s view of what an orchestra can do.”

A committee of 12 (seven board members, four members of the orchestra, and Reed) has been working on the search for a few years. They’ve looked over hundreds of applications, visited orchestras and, eventually, invited candidates to Madison. The organization plans to make a decision by the end of the current season.

Reflecting on the process, Reed likened it to marriage.

“You can date all you want to, but when you get married your life is forever changed,” he said. “We want to make sure we develop a good marriage.”

Meet the candidates

STEPHANIE NOLT
Eight people are being strongly considered for the position of Madison Symphony Orchestra music director.

The first guest conductor, Nicholas Hersh, has been the music director of the Modesto Symphony since 2023. There, he has aimed “to consider our performances as unique experiences that can appeal to both dedicated music lovers and people who might be more interested in something like jazz or indie music,” according to a post on classicalpost.com.

According to reviewer Noah Fellinger, Hersh’s October 2024 concert with the MSO “was equal parts harrowing and intoxicating in the best ways.”

Michael Stern led the MSO in November 2024, with a lively and inspired performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor. Stern is probably best known for his recently concluded 19-year tenure as the musical director of the Kansas City Symphony, where he elevated the orchestra’s musicality, championing especially the works of Gustav Mahler. He is also the musical director of the National Repertory Orchestra and Lumos Orchestra.

Joseph Young, music director of the Berkeley Symphony and artistic director of ensembles at the Peabody Conservatory, connected with the Madison audience when he conducted the MSO’s “Yearnings” in April 2025, guiding the orchestra through a suite of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Young’s conducting was clear, intentional and expressive, and he had a fantastic dialog with the audience.

Robert Moody joined the MSO for the November concert. In the 10 years he served as music director of the Memphis Symphony orchestra, Moody oversaw the largest growth in the orchestra’s history, expanding the orchestra's programming and budget and raising the ensemble’s level of play.

Moody has worked closely with Grammy award winning composer Mason Bates, commissioning many of his works. He has also been the music director of the Arizona Musicfest for the past twenty years and of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra for two years.

Kazem Abdullah will visit the MSO this coming January. Abdullah is an internationally decorated conductor who has been committed to expanding orchestra and opera repertoire in order to reach newer and diverse audiences.

Most recently, he has been touring a much acclaimed revival of Anthony Davis’ “X: The Life and Time of Malcolm X,” which was filmed for the Met Opera’s popular The Met Live in HD. Deeply devoted to the study of music, Abdullah exudes a calm and confident energy at the podium, and his conducting is deliberate and passionate.

Canadian conductor Tania Miller is the artistic director of the Brott Music Festival and Brott Opera as well as the National Academy Orchestra in Hamilton, Ontario. Miller won over the Madison audience when she conducted the MSO’s Epic Romance concert in 2018, and will return to the MSO in its upcoming February concert.

Miller has a commanding yet controlled presence, and her love of making music is clear from the energy she brings into her performance. When she began her 14-year tenure with the Victoria Symphony in British Columbia, she was the youngest and first female to hold such a post in Canada.

JI YANG CHEN
Laura Jackson will lead the MSO in April in a concert featuring the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. A former solo violinist, Jackson is the longtime director of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra and is known for her dynamic leadership and progressive vision, always considering the music experience itself.

“We have to be present with each other. We have to listen and respond to each other,” she said in an interview this summer with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “There are very few things in our life experience that demand that kind of attention.”

Devoted to diversifying the field, Jackson is in her third season as an official mentor to emerging women conductors across the globe in the Taki Alsop Foundation’s Fellowship program.

Finally, also being considered for the position is the current associate conductor of the MSO, Kyle Knox. Having led the MSO on several occasions, Knox knows the orchestra well — this season, he conducted “Toy Story in Concert” in October and will lead “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark™ Live in Concert“ in March.

When he conducts, the orchestra noticeably perks up, and his concerts have been energetic and fun. Knox is also the director of the Madison Youth Orchestra and is very active in the Madison music scene.

With candidates like this, the MSO cannot make a bad decision. From the audience, the energy at these guest conducted concerts has been electric. Both the MSO and each guest conductor have been doing their best to impress their potential future collaborator. It is an exciting time for the MSO.

Reed said that if for some reason none of these eight are awarded the position, the committee has a substantial list of other possible candidates they would be able to explore. DeMain plans to be around to conduct at least some of the 2026-27 season.

By Matt Ambrosio