Music Director
Linc Smelser
Linc Smelser received his bachelor’s degree in cello performance from the University of Arizona, and his master’s degree and performer’s certificate in cello performance and pedagogy with Madame Raya Garbousova at Northern Illinois University. He has appeared as cello soloist with the Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Fox River Valley Symphony, and the Rockford Symphony Orchestra. He has been a member of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra cello section for seventeen years and has been an active substitute with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for eleven years. He is also one of the Three Celli, an ensemble that performs throughout the Northern Illinois area.
He is on the faculty of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and of the Northern Illinois University School of Music and has been teaching private cello lessons through the NIU Community School of the Arts for twenty years. He is also on the faculty of the Chicago Suzuki Institute and guest artist (cellist) of the 2009 Intermountain Suzuki String Institute in Utah. He was appointed conductor andmusic director of the Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra in 2003 and has been guest conductor of the Rockford Area Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Northern Illinois University Philharmonic, the Skokie Valley Community Orchestra, and other orchestras. He is conductor of the NIU Sinfonia and Youth Symphonette, two youth symphonies that attract students from the Northern Illinois area. And he is the piano accompanist for the Northern Illinois University Suzuki program.
He has won several awards, including first prize of the National Society of Arts and Letters Chapter Competition, top prize of the National Federation of Music Clubs Regional Competition, and first prize of the International Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Competition. He is also the recipient of the 2003 Altrusa Award, and he was named 2009 Conductor of the Year (Small Orchestra) by the Illinois Council of Orchestras.
