Kirk Trevor Returns

Kirk Trevor, KSO Conductor Emeritus

Internationally known conductor, recording artist, and educator Kirk Trevor is a regular guest conductor in the world’s most prestigious concert halls. Music Director of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra from 1985 until 2003, he has been Music Director of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra since 1988, and the Missouri Symphony since 2000. Renowned as an orchestra builder, he has brought all of his orchestras to the forefront of community identity and involvement. During his tenure in Knoxville, he broadened the musical spectrum of the Knoxville Symphony, adding Pops, Family and Chamber Music series to the orchestra’s season as well as the highly-acclaimed Clayton Holiday Concerts. He conducted more than fifty-five concerts every season with the Knoxville Symphony and the Knoxville Chamber Orchestra throughout East Tennessee. He has been recognized statewide as having brought a new awareness of classical music to the region. He won the Governor’s Award for the Arts as well as numerous local awards during his tenure. 

Born and educated in England, Kirk Trevor studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music where he graduated cum laude in Cello Performance and Conducting. He was a conducting student of the late Sir Adrian Boult and Vilem Tausky. He went on to pursue cello studies in France with Paul Tortelier under a British Council Scholarship and came to the U.S. on a Fulbright Exchange Grant. It was in the U.S. that his conducting skills led him to the position of Resident Conductor of the Dallas Symphony. He conducted that orchestra in a wide range of concerts in the U.S. and abroad, working closely on recordings and musical projects with the late Eduardo Mata. In 1990 he was recognized as one of America’s outstanding young conductors, winning the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Leonard Bernstein Conducting Competition.

Maestro Trevor has been widely recognized as one of the leading conducting teachers in the world. He has been a master teacher for the American Symphony Orchestra League as well as the Conductor’s Guild. In 1991 he co-founded, and has been Artistic Director of, the International Workshop for Conductors held in the Czech Republic each summer. The IWC is the world’s largest conducting school, each year enrolling over 80 conductors from more than 20 countries. Maestro Trevor has been Director of Orchestras at both the University of Tennessee - Knoxville and Ball State University. He continues to work with young conductors around the world in master classes and workshops.

In 2000 Maestro Trevor forged a new relationship with the famed Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava. With the SRSO he began a new series of recordings of American music for a consortium of independent record companies. To date, he has made more than 50 albums of new American music as part of this ongoing project, including complete albums of music by Lee Actor, Karen Amrhein, Florencio Asenjo, Jeremy Beck, James Cohn, Carson Cooman, David Dzubay, Dan Locklair, William Thomas McKinley, and most recently Judith Zaimont. In addition, he has recorded new albums with outstanding soloists, including Richard Stoltzman, John Manasse, Debra Richtmeyer, and Richard Fredrickson. He has also recorded music for best-selling computer games, including Diablo II.  

In 2006 Maestro Trevor began a new collaboration with Naxos Records to record 19th-century violin composers, as well as American composers in the American Classics series. To date, he has nine new albums in the Naxos catalog. With almost 80 releases since 1997, this makes Kirk Trevor one of the world’s most recorded conductors within the past decade.

In March and April of 2003 Maestro Trevor conducted ten concerts with the SRSO on a tour of Japan. Critics were universal in their praise of both the orchestra and the maestro’s leadership. In the spring of 2004 he led the orchestra on a European premiere tour of Oratorio Terezin, a new work based on the poems of the children of Terezin, the Nazi work camp where thousands of children of Jewish artists and intelligentsia were killed. In 2005 Maestro Trevor went on to conduct this same work throughout Israel with the Israel Chamber Orchestra and Chorus. In May, 2009, he recorded the sequel to this work, Awakening, which was recently released on Tributary Music. 

As a guest conductor Maestro Trevor has appeared with over 40 orchestras in twelve countries. Recent appearances have included the Orchestra Sinfonica Sao Paolo, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Estonian National Symphony, the Warsaw Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon, the Virginia Symphony, the Savannah Symphony, the Sofia Philharmonic, and the Bern Chamber Orchestra. In 2003 he made his London Symphony Orchestra debut, and in 2007 his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Chamber Orchestra.

Maestro Trevor is an avid collector, including an extensive collection of 19th-century British stamps and an unusually fine collection of antique powder compacts. As an avid sportsman he plays golf, tennis, and soccer. He is married to Slovak harpist Maria Duhova and they have two young children, three-year-old Sylvia and one-year-old Daniel. Maestro Trevor’s 22-year-old daughter Chloé frequently appears as a solo violinist on the world’s concert stages, often with her father as conductor. The Trevors maintain homes in Bratislava, Indianapolis, and Missouri.

Chloé Trevor, violin

Silver medalist of the 2008 Ima Hogg Competition, Chloé Trevor, is one of the rising stars on today’s international violin scene. Chloé was introduced to the violin at age 2 by her mother, Heidi Trevor Itashiki, Dallas Symphony violinist. She later studied with Arkady Fomin, Dallas Symphony violinist and Artistic Director of the New Conservatory of Dallas. She has just completed her undergraduate degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music studying with David and Linda Cerone and will continue her education as a scholarship student at Rice University studying with Kenneth Goldsmith.

Critics have acclaimed Chloé for her “dazzling technique,” “excellent musicianship,” “huge tone,” “poise and professional grace” and “a bold personality unafraid to exult in music and ability.”

Chloé has appeared as a soloist with several orchestras, including the Knoxville Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Latvian Chamber Orchestra, Plano Symphony and the Slovak State Philharmonic. She was the Grand Prize winner at the 2006 Lynn Harrell Competition, the 2005 Lennox Competition, the 2003 Dallas Symphonic Festival Competition and the 2000 Collin County Young Artists Competition. She has been a featured violinist in the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado, at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas and with the Missouri Symphony Orchestra. She was also chosen to perform on he nationally syndicated From the Top radio program.

In 2004, Chloé appeared as a soloist with the Lutoslawski Filharmonie (Poland), the Teplice Philharmonic (Czech Republic), the Muncie (Indiana) Symphony and the Missouri Chamber Orchestra. She also performed as a soloist in the 2004 Young Prague Festival in August. Recent performances include solo appearances in New York at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, a tour with the Latvian Chamber Orchestra in Riga, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Dallas Symphony, and Prokofiev's 2nd Violin Concerto at Sala São Paulo in Brazil and with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra as a result of winning the Cleveland Institute of Music's 2007 Concerto Competition.

Chloé's 2007-2008 season included a full recital sponsored by the Fine Arts Chamber Players of Dallas in memoriam of Cleveland orchestra bassist Charles Barr and a performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Houston Symphony in June. She also performed a full recital at the Music in the Mountains Festival with pianist David Korevaar, and opened the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra's 2008 season with the Barber Violin Concerto. In 2009, Chloé opened the Missouri Symphony “Hot Summer Nights” Festival with the Brahms Violin Concerto.

Chloé plays on a Carlos Landolfi violin made in Italy in 1771, and is on faculty at the Music in the Mountains Conservatory.

Discounts up to 20% are available for groups of 10 or more!  To bring your group to a KSO performance call Lusada at 865-521-2337.