The Oregon Sinfonietta's resident Maestro is Dr. Donald Lawrence Appert, whose diverse and active career includes a wide
variety of engagements as a conductor and composer. Professor of Music and Head of the Music Department at Clark College,
Dr. Appert is currently in his seventeenth season as Music Director and Conductor of the Clark College Orchestra. In addition
he performs frequently abroad as a Guest Conductor and is next scheduled to lead ensembles in Turkey, Japan, Romania, Italy and El
Salvador. 2006 also marks the second year in a row that he has been has been honored by the American Society of Composers,
Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) with the ASCAPLUS Award, the first given in recognition of the European performances of his work
Elegy for String Orchestra and the most recent for the European performances of his new orchestral work Prism.
L'ovadese wrote of Dr. Appert's engagement with L'Orchestra Sinfonica Citta di Grosseto that "the performance of the Serenade in C major of Tchaikovsky, under the exceptional direction of Appert, was in such a style that it brought out the elegance and grace of the melodic lines with Mozartian inspiration. . . . performed the Barber Adagio with rare effectiveness, emphasizing its intrinsically rich melody." Giornale di Sicilia praised his interpretation of Nielsen's First Symphony as "lyrical with an airy freshness" and his conducting as "precise, painstakingly accurate, and diligent." Among his many performances overseas, in 2002 he led the Filharmonie Bohuslav Martinu of the Czech Republic in a program that included the European premiere of his own Elegy, which was originally commissioned and given its world premiere by the Ashiya Chamber Orchestra of Kobe, Japan.
Dr. Appert has also guest conducted the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ente Autonomo Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Italy,
the Warwick Community Youth Orchestra in Australia, the City of Athens Symphony Orchestra in Greece, the Bourgas Opera Philharmonic
Society in Bulgaria, the Slovak State Orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra of St. Petersburg in Russia, the Orchestra of the
Conservatoire Frederic Chopin in France, the Valcea Philharmonic in Romania, and the Orquestra da Fundacao Conservatorio Regional de Gaia
in Portugal. While his passion for guest conducting internationally is
readily apparent, Dr. Appert also enjoys visiting orchestras that are closer to home. In the United States he has worked with the
Vancouver Symphony (Washington), the Eastern Washington University Symphony Orchestra, the University of Texas Arlington Symphony
Orchestra and the University of Central Arkansas Symphony.
As a composer, Dr. Appert is a member of ASCAP with most of his works published. In October of 1998 the Ashiya Chamber Orchestra gave the Japanese premiere of In the Similitude of a Dream. This piece for string orchestra was recorded by the Clark College Orchestra on its first compact disc and received its Australian premiere in August of 1999. It was later performed by the Salem (Oregon) Youth Orchestra. The Ashiya Chamber Orchestra also gave the Japanese premiere of Thru a Glass Darkly in October of 1999 and their aforementioned commission of Elegy. Dr. Appert has since conducted this work with orchestras in the United States, the Czech and Slovak Republics, France, Romania and Portugal. His work Quid Enim? was premiered by the Clark College Women's Choral Ensemble in March of 2002 and Audienda-Chor premiered Who Shall Know? for a capella choir in Krefeld, Germany in November of 2002. You can listen to some of this extraordinary music at his web site.
Dr. Appert's path to success as a conductor and composer began with the trombone, an instrument in which he holds both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the New England Conservatory. His trombone teachers included Ronald Barron, John Coffey, and Tyrone Breuninger, and he performed as a trombonist with the Kansas City Symphony, the Virginia Symphony, the Virginia Opera Orchestra, and the Springfield (Massachusetts) Symphony. Dr. Appert earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Kansas. He studied conducting with Riccardo Muti, Otto Werner Mueller, Maurice Abravanel, Daniel Lewis, Fredrik Fennel, George Lawner and Richard Pittman, and was also one of fourteen conductors chosen to participate in Helmuth Rilling's Masterclass at the 1992 Oregon Bach Festival. Fortunately for the Oregon Sinfonietta and our audiences, Dr. Appert resides in Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River from our ensemble. He and his wife Linda Appert, a coloratura soprano and active voice teacher, have two daughters who are both talented musicians in their own right - Laura, a violist, and Rebecca, a violinist. Both graduated from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
To view a June 2008 article about Dr. Appert and music composition in The Columbian, Click Here.