Conductor Fellowship

2025-2026 Conducting Fellowship – The CSO is not accepting applications for the 2025-2026 season due to CSO’s ongoing Music Director search.

With questions about the fellowship application process, email rhagemeier@cantonsymphony.org

Further your conducting career.

The Canton Symphony Orchestra Conductor Fellowship was established to give is open to recent graduates of a Masters Degree program in orchestral conducting who are looking for opportunities to further their career as they begin to search for employment in the profession. The fellows will be invited to conduct an educational concert and serve as cover conductors for the MasterWorks series. The fellow will work with the CSO Music Director, musicians, and staff throughout their time as a fellow in planning the concert and rehearsing with the orchestra for the educational concert, and will receive constructive feedback from the Music Director and members of the orchestra.

Application consists of:

      • Resume/Cover Letter
      • Recommendation Letters
      • Up to 15 minutes of conducting footage, including rehearsal footage if available. This may be submitted via any electronic method, including YouTube/Vimeo links or uploads to platforms such as WeTransfer or Google Drive. Video must show the front of the conductor, as if from the perspective of the orchestra.
      • A video of yourself reading the sample script excerpt on page 3 of the fellowship description.

2024-2026 Fellow

Alison Norris

Dedicated to sharing the sense of awe latent within music and committed to engaging listeners with its contemporary relevance, Brooklyn-based conductor Alison Norris currently serves as the Conducting Fellow for the Canton Symphony—a position they won in 2024 and that has since been renewed and expanded for the 2025/26 season. Internationally, Norris has been invited as a guest conductor with the China International Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing and conducted the Orchestre Métropolitain as a conducting finalist with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Domaine Forget de Charlevoix. Recent festival engagements include Tanglewood’s Conducting Seminar, where they were invited to premiere a new work by Maya Miro Johnson, and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music as a Conducting Associate.

Always seeking to foster musical fascination alongside human compassion, in 2024 Norris organized a multidisciplinary benefit concert project entitled “Divinity and the Cosmos: A Genderqueer Exploration of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphonie”. They collaborated with five other transgender artists to create original films examining each movement of Messiaen’s preeminent work through a genderqueer lens: helping audiences navigate unfamiliar dissonances with the similarly enigmatic nature of trans joy. 

Norris’s conducting mentors include George Manahan, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jim Ross, Cristian Măcelaru, and Oriol Sans. Alison holds a Professional Studies diploma from the Manhattan School of Music, a Masters of Music from UW-Madison, and a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso University.

2024-2025 Fellow

Alicia Lieu

Alicia Lieu is a New York City-based conductor and composer known for her innovative programming, including the interactive “Dance-it-Yourself Nutcracker.” She leads the chamber ensemble Musikapiphany and has participated in various festivals. After her private conducting studies, she founded the New York Conducting Institute and Women Conductors Workshops to support fellow conductors. A composer trained under Nadia Boulanger, Alicia has received grants for her work and established the Composers Collective and Pitches Brew non-profit organizations. She created “The 48-Hour Musical” event and has extensive experience in arts education, serving as a teaching artist at several institutions. Alicia holds degrees in music composition and orchestral conducting from various prestigious schools.

2024 Spring Fellow

Andrew Samlal

Andrew Samlal is Conductor of the Temple University OWLchestra and Conducting Apprentice with the Philadelphia Ballet. He will also serve as the Music Director for the Delaware Valley Opera Company’s Spring production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. He recently graduated from Temple University with a master’s degree in Collaborative Piano with a focus in Operatic Coaching. At Temple, Samlal worked as Assistant Conductor for the Temple Symphony Orchestra, Vice President and Artistic Director of the Temple Repertory Orchestra and Assistant Conductor and Coach with the Temple Opera Theater on Le Nozze Di Figaro, Hansel und Gretel and Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters (2012). Samlal has been privileged to work with notable conductors and artists including Markand Thakar, Beatrice Affron, Jose Luis Dominguez, Thomas Hong and Lambert Orkis. 

Visit Andrew’s website HERE.