Michael Finckel, Music Director and Conductor

Michael Finckel started his studies with his parents, both prominent musicians living in Bennington. He attended Oberlin College Conservatory and Bennington College where he studied composition, conducting and orchestration with Lou Calabro and Henry Brant. He was the principal cellist and a commissioned composer and soloist in the Symphony's early years and now continues the unique traditions of the orchestra's founder, composer Lou Calabro.

He has taught cello and composition at Bennington and Marymount Colleges and at Princeton and Cornell Universities. As a member of the faculty of the Vermont Governor's Institute on the Arts he taught composition to gifted junior and high school students throughout Vermont. Michael Finckel has an active career as a soloist and chamber musician, composer, teacher and conductor based in New York City, performing with orchestral and chamber ensembles across the country and in Europe. He has a strong background and intense interest in contemporary music as well as the traditional repertoire and has regularly collaborated with New York's leading new music ensembles and performances under the direction of Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez.

Michael Finckel performs and coaches each year at the Composer's Conference and Chamber Music Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts and at the Chamber Music Conference and Composer's Forum of the East at Bennington College.