Kevin McMahon

Title

Conductor, Baton 1

Kevin is currently in his eleventh year as Music Director and Conductor of the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra.  He is Resident Conductor of the Rome (Italy) Festival and Artistic Director for the Maud Powell Music Festival and related programs. Kevin resides in LaSalle, Illinois, and Madison, Wisconsin.

Kevin has a bachelor's degree in violin performance from the University of Michigan. He also holds two master's degrees in orchestral and opera conducting and violin performance from the University of Michigan. He recently received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting.

Kevin made his symphonic conducting debut with the Symphony School of America Chamber Orchestra, subsequently returning as Music Director. In the same period, he served as Music Director and Conductor of the National Arts Chamber Orchestra. This ensemble toured major cultural centers in Cleveland, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, Washington DC, Madison, Chicago, and numerous other communities and was a resident orchestra for the XIVth International Viola Congress.

In 1989 Kevin became Resident Conductor for the Lincoln Opera of Chicago. Simultaneously, he served as Music Director and Conductor for the Northwest Indiana Youth Orchestra. This ensemble's tours included major centers in Italy. He served as an Assistant Conductor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Orchestras and Opera.

Kevin's guest work has included the Spokane Symphony (WA), Damiana Ensemble (Czech Republic), Elgin Choral Union (IL), Varna Philharmonic (Bulgaria), Forfest (Czech Republic), South Bend Symphony (IN), Northwest Indiana Symphony, Elgin Symphony (IL), Florida All-State Orchestra, Indiana Opera North, Marquette Symphony (MI), Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Orchestra of Colours (Athens, Greece), Evanston Symphony (IL), Lincoln Park Sinfonietta (IL), Southwest Michigan Symphony, Hinsdale Chamber Orchestra (IL), Hungarian Opera of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Göttinger Symphonie Orchestra (Germany), and the Saginaw Symphony (MI).

In Rome Kevin has regularly mounted operatic productions including works of Puccini, Bizet, Humperdinck, Mozart, Verdi, J. Strauss II, and Donizetti. With the Classical Symphony Chamber Ensemble, he presented Barber's A Hand of Bridge. Locally Dr. Kevin collaborated on a production of Moore's The Devil and Daniel Webster. He led Rossini's The Barber of Seville and numerous opera gala concerts with the Indiana Opera North. He has recorded works of Francesco Veccia in Los Angeles and a video version of an excerpt from Puccini's Suor Angelica. He has been responsible for a number of European premieres and forty-one world premieres including his own opera Marilyn Monroe (2004).

Kevin has studied with luminaries in the music profession including Gunther Schuller, Harold Farberman, Margaret Hillis, Gustav Meier, Maurice Abravanel, and with Erich Leinsdorf and Leonard Slatkin at the New York Philharmonic Symposium. Kevin has attended the Tanglewood Music Center and master classes of Seiji Ozawa, Robert Spano, and Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Bruckner Symposium with Sir Georg Solti.