Gary S. Fagin

Gary has conducted, composed, orchestrated and arranged music for symphony orchestras across the country, ballet, Broadway and Off-Broadway, Public Radio, regional and repertory theaters and university and conservatory orchestras.

Mr. Fagin is Music Director of the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra in New York City; he was Music Director of the Bucks County (PA) Symphony Orchestra for 20 years, conducted the New Jersey Ballet’s annual production of The Nutcracker with the New Jersey Symphony for 25 years; and has appeared as conductor with numerous regional orchestras.

Mr. Fagin served as Musical Director and Conductor for seven years at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven and for three seasons at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge. His many theater credits include productions of The Three Penny Opera with Sting on Broadway and with director Martha Clarke at the Atlantic Theater Company, and Stephen Paulus’s Hester Prynne at Death at the 92nd Street Y. He composed, orchestrated and conducted the music for Charlotte: Life? Or Theater?, a music theater work based on the life and work of artist Charlotte Salomon with book and lyrics by Elise Thoron, which received its world premiere performance to critical acclaim at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia and has been performed in concert versions in Washington, D.C., St. Petersburg, Russia, London and Amsterdam. His Dramatic Song Cycle, John Adams in Amsterdam: A Song for Abigail, with lyrics by Terry Quinn, received its world premiere performance at The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam before Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands; his A Distant Love: Songs of John and Abigail Adams was performed by Chelsea Opera.

The Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra has premiered a number of Mr. Fagin’s compositions: An Inaugural Fanfare (2009); Suite for Strings (2009); And Bold To Fall Withal: Henry Hudson in the New World, with Jason Danieley, tenor (2010); Robert Moses Astride New York, with tenor Rinde Eckert (2011); Cantata for Huddled Masses, with soprano Marin Mazzie (2012); Jane Jacobs Saves New York, with Marin Mazzie (2014); Supreme Justice: The Battle For Gay Rights, with soprano Lucy Shelton and tenor John Duykers (2016); The Winter Garden Waltzes (2018); The Struggle To Forgive: Confronting Gun Violence in America, with soprano Michaela Bennett, mezzo-soprano Sarah Heltzel, and baritone Jorell Williams (2018); Jumping Mouse, A Children’s Opera in One Act, with soprano Laura Worsham, tenor Jason Gotay, tenor Glenn Seven Allen, and baritone Nathaniel Sullivan (2019); 9/11 In Memoriam (2021); Good Trouble, with soprano Lindsay Roberts, mezzo-soprano Rosena Hill Jackson, tenor Chauncey Packer, and baritone Tamar Greene (2022). Mr. Fagin studied composition with George Crumb and George Rochberg at The University of Pennsylvania; cello with Orlando Cole of The Curtis Quartet; and conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller at The Yale School of Music, where he received the first Doctorate Degree in Conducting ever awarded by Yale. He Was a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, Herbert Blomstedt’s Conducting Institute in Loma Linda, CA and was twice chosen for the Conducting Seminar at Tanglewood. He pursued post-graduate conducting studies at The Hochschule für Musik, Berlin, and holds a Certificate from the Kodaly Institute of Pedagogy in Kescemet, Hungary.
Mr. Fagin was Assistant Professor and Conductor at The University of Wisconsin-Madison and later Hofstra University. He has taught at Yale University, The Juilliard School, The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and New York University. He is Founder and Director of The New York Conducting Studio; his students conduct major and regional orchestras, on Broadway, and attend America’s most prestigious music conservatories.

For four seasons Mr. Fagin’s arrangements were broadcast weekly on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion on American Public Radio. He has orchestrated music for the Boston Pops, Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, Sandy Duncan, Tom Chapin and for recordings by Rob Fisher & The Coffee Club Orchestra and The Manhattan Rhythm Kings. Mr. Fagin’s Edition of Kurt Weill’s Happy End is published by European American Music. Peer Southern Concert Music publishes his Rag Concertina, and arrangement of three rags for piano solo and orchestra. His transcriptions of works by Duke Ellington are available through The Smithsonian Jazz Anthology. As a cellist and bassist he recorded with the folk musician Bill Crofut.

As a Conductor -