Brian Stone was awarded the 2008 Jessie B DuPont Educators Award
- Dr. Brian Stone
Dr. Brian Stone was awarded the 2008 Jessie B DuPont Educators Award, which was presented to him on May 16th at the Delaware Symphony Orchestra Concert.
Dr. Stone has been key to the development of orchestral activities here at UD since his arrival in 2002, which now includes a three-ensemble division (University Strings, UD Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra) comprised of 100 UD students from all majors. The growth of the string program under Dr. Stone’s leadership has also led to the establishment of the UD Opera Theatre that boasts full operas with orchestra. In addition to his UD responsibilities, Dr. Stone presents pre-concert lectures for the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He is also an evaluator of arts programs in Delaware on behalf of the Delaware Division of the Arts. He has been guest conductor at numerous universities such as Catholic University, University of Maryland, Ohio University, Boston Conservatory, John Hopkins and in the past year has conducted the Juno Alaska Symphony and Burgas Philharmonic in Bulgaria.
This October, UD Symphony Orchestra will welcome faculty baritone Robert Brandt to sing Mahler’s sentimental songs of unrequited love, Songs of a Wayfarer. The orchestra will open with Schumann’s brooding and impetuous Manfred Overture and finish with the flaming red-hot exuberance of the Fifth Symphony of Tschaikowsky. In November, the UD Opera Theater with Chamber Orchestra will perform The Merry Wives of Windsor in beautiful Thompson Theatre. The Merry Wives of Windsor will be performed in an English translation by Josef Blatt. Finally, UD Schola Cantorum and UD Symphony Orchestra join forces to close the Fall Semester with a special concert of two Twentieth-Century masterworks from the grand tradition of French Catholicism: Olivier Messiaen’s Four Symphonic Mediations known as “The Ascension,” and the Requiem of Maurice Duruflé. With so much activity among the UD Orchestras, it is easy to see why Dr. Brian Stone was awarded this prestigious educator’s award.
For the first time ever, there were two recipients of this award, the second being Martha Burke, a retired elementary music teacher who currently supervises our student teachers. How wonderful to have two UD educators recognized in this way!