Oregon Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra

Conductors Diane Chaplin and Jeffrey Specht

OPAYCO and PACS director DIANE CHAPLIN
	Diane Chaplin is a world-class cellist, nurturing music educator and dedicated conductor. In addition to her position as director and conductor of the Oregon Pro Arte Youth Chamber Orchestra and Pro Arte Conservatory Strings, she is also co-director of the Chamber Music Camp of Portland, where she conducts the advanced chamber orchestra, and co-director and solo cellist with Northwest New Music. Before moving to Portland in 2009, Diane spent 21 years as the cellist of the Colorado Quartet, enjoying an international career which took her around the globe. The Colorado Quartet was the first all-female string quartet to perform the complete Beethoven Quartet cycle in both North America and Europe and their complete recordings of these quartets are available on the Parnassus label. Other award-winning discs can be heard on the Parnassus, Mode and Albany labels.
Diane has held teaching positions at many prestigious institutions of higher learning: she was a visiting faculty member at Yale University, and has also taught at Bard College, Oberlin College-Conservatory and Swarthmore College. She has given master classes at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, Indiana University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory, Stanford University and the Banff Centre. Diane is an inspiring teacher and trained hundreds of young cellists during a two-decade tenure at the Allen-Stevenson School in Manhattan. She now has a private cello studio in Portland. Diane holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts, where she was a student of Cesare Pascarella, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Harvey Shapiro. She received a Special Prize from the International Cello Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile, and a Certificate from the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and has appeared in solo concerts throughout the United States and Europe. She has performed several times with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and has often appeared in cameo performances with the Flying Karamazov Brothers. She has conducted at music festivals in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and has conducted bands, orchestras and string groups at Portland's Metropolitan Youth Symphony. An ardent yoga practitioner and certified yoga instructor, Diane teaches classes through Street Yoga, a dedicated group that brings yoga to homeless and at-risk youth. She has published two volumes of original cello music for students, Cello Champs, and one of her deviations from the classical path was the composition of songs and incidental music for a spoof musical, The Red Ukulele. An official espresso snob, Diane drinks locally-roasted Badbeard's Deep Cello Espresso.

OPACO conductor
JEFFREY SPECHT

Whether conducting symphonic works in the concert hall or opera in the pit, conductor and arts advocate Jeffrey Specht is fully dedicated to fostering the love of music and uplifting others through live performance. Enthralling audiences throughout the United States, his perfor-mances have been hailed as "inspiring, profound, and exciting," and his ensembles have been described as having "a rich and vibrant sound."

A relative newcomer to Portland, Dr. Specht is the Director of Orchestra and Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Lewis and Clark College. Prior to his current assignments, he served as the Conductor and Primary Instructor of the Campus Orchestra and Campus String Orchestra at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, the Music Director of the Crow Area Youth Orchestra (CRAYO) in Minnesota, the Interim Conductor for the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, the Conductor of the Metroplex Opera Co. in Dallas, TX, and the Music Director of the Eau Claire Children's Theater in Wisconsin. Dr. Specht has also served as Cover Conductor for the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, the Assistant Conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra and Opera Theater at the University of Minnesota, and the Meadows Orchestra in Dallas, TX. He has also worked with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and the New Symphony Orchestra of Sofia, Bulgaria.

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