Conductor Murry Sidlin is now serving his sixth year as director (Dean) of the School of Music at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Before coming to Catholic University, for eight years, he served as resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony with James DePreist, where he originated the Illuminations concert dramas that set records for audience attendance and which he now performs across the country.

The year 2008 will mark his thirtieth season at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where, with Maestro David Zinman, he co-founded the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, which he serves as associate director and program coordinator. Sidlin also performs regularly each summer, bringing Illuminations to the famed Aspen music tent, where he has received enthusiastic reviews.

In addition, this summer Sidlin embarks on his thirteenth season as artistic director of the Cascade Festival of Music in Bend, Oregon, one of the largest and most popular arts festivals in the Pacific Northwest.

On New Year’s Eve, he will conduct his fourteenth consecutive New Year's Eve Gala with the National Symphony at Washington's Kennedy Center. The National Symphony has long had a special place in Sidlin’s career, for he spent four years there as associate conductor to Antal Dorati. Sidlin also served as assistant conductor to Sergiu Comissiona at the Baltimore Symphony. His career includes tenure as music director of the New Haven Symphony, the Long Beach Symphony, and the Tulsa Philharmonic.

Sidlin's guest conducting has taken him to the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, the Jerusalem Symphony, Holland’s Lindberg Orchestra, the RTVE Orchestra in Madrid, I Solisti Veneti in Italy, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Sweden’s Gavleborg Orkester, the Bucharest Philharmonic in Romania, and the Canadian orchestras of Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, and Kitchner-Waterloo.

In the United States, he has conducted the orchestras of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Minnesota, San Diego, Utah, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle, Baltimore, Boston Pops, Atlanta, San Antonio (Symphony and Opera), Julliard and many, many others.

Sidlin gave the eastern European premiere of Leonard Bernstein's MASS at the Vilnius Festival, and took this work on tour with the Lithuanian Orchestra and Chorus to Slovenia and Germany. In America, he has conducted more than fifteen performances of Bernstein's MASS.

He has conducted hundreds of opera performances, among them nearly 100 performances of his own chamber ensemble version of Aaron Copland's only opera, THE TENDER LAND. Copland himself authorized and approved the arrangement, which was recorded on Koch International recordings. Recently, Sidlin recorded MARIA DE BUENOS AIRES, the tango opera by Astor Piazzolla, which was released in September 2006. He also presented the American staged premiere of Karol Szymanowski's 1926 masterpiece Król Roger in California.

During the 2007-2008 season, Sidlin debuted with Israel’s New Haifa Orchestra, where he conducted several performances of his concert drama DEFIANT REQUIEM: Verdi at Terezin. DEFIANT REQUIEM includes a complete performance of the Verdi REQUIEM in the context of the famous performances by prisoners in the Terezin concentration camp, who sang the REQUIEM in defiance of Nazi oppression. In 2006, Sidlin actually conducted DEFIANT REQUIEM on the grounds of the Terezin. Mr. Sidlin is conductor, narrator, producer, and writer of the forthcoming documentary film DEFIANT REQUIEM: Verdi at Terezin, currently in production.

In addition to DEFIANT REQUIEM, Sidlin’s ILLUMINATIONS include: SIGMUND FREUD AND THE DREAMS OF GUSTAV MAHLER, SILENT BUGLES/THE WAR REQUIEM, AARON COPLAND'S AMERICA, SHADOWS AND VOICES-THE FINAL DAYS OF TCHAIKOWSKY, THE ANATOMY OF THE NINTH, RUSSIAN DAVID-SOVIET GOLIATH: Shostakvich vs. Stalin, FROM LENNY TO MAESTRO, and many more. Last summer at the Aspen Music Festival he premiered a new creation entitled, "WHO KILLED MOZART?"

Sidlin’s numerous television credits include MUSIC IS …, a ten-part series about music for young people that which was broadcast nationally in America for five years. As conductor and teaching conductor, he has been featured on major television morning shows in the United States: NBC’s TODAY, CBS Sunday Morning, and ABC’s GOOD MORNING AMERICA as conductor and teaching conductor.

This season he has been invited to initiate a series of 3 ILLUMINATIONS concerts with the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony, and will perform DEFIANT REQUIEM with the Buffalo Philharmonic.


Sidlin’s teachers were Sergiu Celibidache, and Leon Barzin. In addition to his professional conducting, Sidlin has served on the faculties of the University of Minnesota, and Pacific University, lectured extensively throughout the United States, and has taught more than 200 conducting master classes.

In 1997, Sidlin was named "educator of the year" by the National Association of Independent Schools of Music in America.