Associate Conductor
Sean Newhouse is the newly appointed Associate Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.  From 2005 to 2008, he was Music Director and Conductor of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles, where he followed in the footsteps of such illustrious alumni YMF conductors as Michael Tilson Thomas, Lawrence Foster, Myung-Whun Chung, and Daniel Hege.  He recently made his European debut, conducting the Silesian Philharmonic in Warsaw and Katowice, as a result of being named a major prizewinner in the 8th International Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition for Conductors.  

Mr. Newhouse’s performances have drawn praise from both audiences and critics.  The New York Times called his performance of Joan Tower’s “Strike Zones”, in Tanglewood’s 2007 Festival of Contemporary Music, “the real dazzler of the festival”, singling out its “vitality and color.”  In 2006, when Mr. Newhouse debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom, the Akron Beacon Journal lauded the performance as “luminous.”  

In 2008, Mr. Newhouse returns to Tanglewood as a guest conductor of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Orchestra.  Other recent guest conducting has included the Milwaukee Symphony, Aspen Concert Orchestra, and New World Symphony (the latter at the special invitation of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas).   In 2005, he was selected as the winner of the Aspen Conducting Prize and named Assistant Conductor to the Aspen Music Festival & School and Music Director David Zinman for the 2006 season.  He has served as Guest Cover Conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a number of occasions, assisting Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and guest conductors.

Highlights of his three seasons with the YMF Debut Orchestra included seven world premieres, a nationally televised holiday concert and a performance for the President and First Lady, and a collaboration with the Angel City Chorale and actress Toni Trucks for William Grant Still’s landmark work Lenox Avenue.  In 2006, Mr. Newhouse and the Debut Orchestra gave a special invited performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, for the League of American Orchestras National Conference.  Mr. Newhouse returned with the Debut Orchestra to Disney Hall in 2007 for an acclaimed performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Shadow of Stalin” festival.  His second and third seasons included the YMF Debut Orchestra’s first performances on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s historic “Sundays Live” series.

Mr. Newhouse studied at the Tanglewood Music Center, the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and the Pierre Monteux School, among others.  His conducting mentors have included James Levine, Jorge Mester, David Zinman, Carl Topilow, Stefan Asbury, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Neil Varon.  Originally trained as a violinist, his teachers included Devy Erlih at the Alfred Cortot School in Paris and Joanna Owen at the Eastman School.