Keith Clark

Keith Clark is an American composer, conductor, and music educator who is best known for founding the Pacific Symphony and the Astoria Music Festival. Active globally as a conductor, he has an extensive discography with symphonies internationally, including the London Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and Pacific Symphony among others. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Siberian Chamber Orchestra in Omsk, Russia, Principal Conductor of the Amadeus Opera Ensemble in Salzburg, Artistic Director of Portland Summerfest's Opera in the Park, and Artistic Director of the Astoria Music Festival.

Early life, family, and education Born in Illinois, Clark grew up in Ottawa, Illinois in a century-old farmhouse just southwest of Chicago. Clark's father, also named Keith, was a high school teacher and folk singer and instrumentalist who travelled around the midwest collecting folk songs, much in the way that Bartok and Kodaly had done earlier. His father was a close friend of Pete Seeger, whom he met in New York City while making recordings for Folkway Records. They later attended classes at Harvard University together, including a class taught by the poet Robert Frost, played on the same softball team, and spent time together with the author Truman Capote. He was particularly active in Vienna during the 1970s; having several of his own operas performed at the Vienna Festival during that decade, serving as Assistant Conductor of the World Youth Orchestra in Vienna under Leonard Bernstein, and working as Principal Guest Conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. With that orchestra he conducted numerous concerts, made several radio and television broadcasts in Vienna and abroad for BBC, and made several recordings.

In 1978, Clark became director of orchestras and opera conductor at California State University in Fullerton, California. Under his leadership, the orchestra soon became a fully professional orchestra with a subscription season and a subscriber base of more than three thousand people. In 1988 he resigned from his post, after being forced out by the orchestra's board of directors.

In 2003 Clark co-founded the Astoria Music Festival in Astoria, Oregon with soprano Ruth Dobson, and has served as the Artistic Director of the festival from 2003 until the present. In 2006 he became Principal Guest Conductor of the Siberian State Philharmonic and was appointed Artistic Director of the Novosibirsk Globus Theatre where he notably staged the Russian premiere of Bernstein's West Side Story in 2007. He later conducted the Moscow premiere of the musical in 2010.

Clark has also worked as a guest conductor with many orchestras and ensembles during his career, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Siberian Chamber Orchestra in Omsk, Russia, Principal Conductor of the Amadeus Opera Ensemble in Salzburg, Artistic Director of Portland Summerfest's Opera in the Park, and Artistic Director of the Astoria Music Festival.

Discography