PERSONNEL
 
Kim Diehnelt: Conductor
Xavier Kimble: Associate Conductor
Michael Goode: General Manager and Founder
David Maller: Orchestral Assistant and Librarian
Angel Lam: Staff Composer
Bjourn Berkhout: Staff Composer
 
 
Kim Diehnelt



Conductor
 
 
Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kim Diehnelt received European experience and education from teachers and musicians throughout Scandinavia, Russia, and Europe. After studies in clarinet and composition Ms. Diehnelt started training in conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, and continued with the German conducting pedagogue, Walter Hügler, at the Biel Academy, Switzerland. Ms. Diehnelt also gained professional training at the Vienna International Master Class with Hans Graf, the Nordic Conductor’s Master Class with Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the Sibelius Academy Conducting Master Class with Atso Almila.

In Helsinki, Ms. Diehnelt also taught chamber music at the Musicology Department of Helsinki University and was Music Director of the Helsinki Community College Orchestra. In 1997, she founded the Helsinki Camerata, a group dedicated to a chamber music approach to orchestral works. While in Europe, Ms. Diehnelt worked with musicians and ensembles from various countries, including the South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra, Russian chamber ensembles, and soloists from Estonia, Sweden and Poland.

Ms. Diehnelt has participated in American conducting workshops, including the Conductors Institute in South Carolina, and American Symphony Orchestra League workshops with Victor Yampolsky, Christopher Wilkins, Kenneth Kiesler, and Daniel Lewis. In 2002 Diehnelt was selected to attend the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen with David Zinman.

In the United States, Ms. Diehnelt has been Music Director of the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra, and Opera Millennium (MN) where she led premiere productions of the dance operas Goddess Songs and Ashoka. As Assistant Conductor for the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest (IL) Diehnelt initiated the popular “Symphony Slam” programs. In May 2006, she conducted the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest’s 75th Anniversary Concert, presenting the dramatic premiere of Angel Lam’s Symphonic Journal: Ambush from Ten Sides.

As of 2005 Ms. Diehnelt has been Conductor of the Chicago Reading Orchestra, leading twice-weekly rehearsals of major orchestral repertoire. As CRO Conductor Diehnelt promotes and inspires expressiveness and personal development amongst all musicians, while expanding the players’ stylistic and musical understanding. Within its first season Ms. Diehnelt has conducted over 85 major orchestral works with the CRO. She also gives audition-preparation and score-tutor sessions for CRO musicians and area freelance musicians.

Ms. Diehnelt is also currently Conductor of the newly-formed Lakeside Pride Orchestra. The June 2006 debut concert of the LPO features a premiere of Cascade by the internationally-recognized composer Bjorn Berkhout.

Ms. Diehnelt has become known as an expert in the music of Edward Elgar. In the spring of 2005 the Elgar Society in England sponsored her reading of Elgar’s In The South tone-poem and the Cockaigne Overture with the Chicago Reading Orchestra.
 

 
Michael Goode



General Manager
 
Michael Goode holds a B.A. degree from the University of Illinois in Spanish and Latin American Literature, Music, and Business. He also holds a Master of Liberal Arts degree from the University of Chicago in Psychoneuromusicology, a field he created in the process of research done for this work. Mr. Goode has been Principal Trumpet of the Bismarck/Mandan Symphony Orchestra for the past three years and plays Assistant Principal/Third Trumpet of the Ravinia Festival Orchestra with members of the Chicago Symphony. For the past year, he has crisscrossed the country doing workshops and clinics on the topic of stage fright and the mental aspects of performance in support of his new book, Stage Fright in Music Performance and Its Relationship to the Unconscious. Michael has also been on the BBC. He has a monthly column in the Overture, the newsmagazine of Musicians' Local 47 in Los Angeles. Mr. Goode is a member of a Chicago-area voice studio and has done voice recitals in the past three years. singing in both English and Italian.   Michael Goode is indebted to the example and help of his teachers, Adolph Herseth, Arnold Jacobs, William Scarlett of the Chicago Symphony, Donald Greene, Paul Renard, and Elizabeth Hale Knox.