Margery Deutsch
In great demand as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator, Margery Deutsch has over thirty years of experience on the podium. She has worked with professional, community, youth, and high school orchestras and has traveled the world, performing in over a dozen countries on four continents.
Named Professor Emeritus in 2012, Deutsch served as Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1984 – 2012. Under her direction, the orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall as part of the 2012 New York International Music Festival. Other performances include the Chicago Symphony Center, the Wisconsin Music Educators Association State Conference, the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, in addition to concerts throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois.
Dedicated to working with musicians of all ages and backgrounds, Deutsch serves as the Music Director of UWM’s University Community Orchestra, an ensemble of over 125 musicians ranging in age from 12 to 88. The orchestra is comprised of college, high school, and middle school students as well as community members. UCO performs three concerts a year and plays a combination of classical, light classical and pops repertoire.
Deutsch has been Music Director of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Senior Symphony since 1987. MYSO, the largest youth orchestra program in the United States, is recognized as one of the premier youth orchestras in the country. Under her direction, the Senior Symphony has toured Ireland, South America, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, China, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Canada, the Pacific Northwest and Scotland, where the orchestra performed as part of the Festival of British Youth Orchestras and the Edinburgh Festival. MYSO was chosen to perform on the Gala Winners’ Concert as part of the 2012 Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival in Vienna, Austria.
Deutsch has conducted MYSO in performances at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ulster Hall in Belfast, Musikverein’s Golden Hall, Bela Bartok National Hall, Dvorak Hall in the Rudolfinum, and the Great Hall of Vienna’s Konzerthaus. In addition, they have performed in Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and at the Wisconsin Music Educators Conference (North Central Division) and the Mid-West International Band and Orchestra Clinic. Deutsch and the orchestra were selected by famed bassist and author Barry Green (The Inner Game of Music) to serve as the demonstration orchestra for his series of ensemble workbooks and the accompanying video. In 2007, MYSO received a “Meet the Composer” grant through Music Alive and the League of American Orchestras for which Deutsch conducted the world premiere of a newly commissioned work. An advocate for new music, she has championed the works of many composers including Christopher Theophanidis, Stella Sung, Gabriela Lena Frank, James Woodward, Kirt Mosier, Crawford Gates, Chen Yi, John Downey, Fischer Tull, Tomas Svoboda, and Andrzes Panufnik.
Prior to coming to Milwaukee, Deutsch served as Music Director of the Shreveport (LA) Symphony where she conducted classical, chamber orchestra, pops and children’s concerts, as well as operas. Versed in both orchestral and choral repertoire, she was Music Director of the Long Island Singers Society and, in Milwaukee, has guest conducted the Master Singers, Bel Canto Chorus, Milwaukee Choristers, Lawrence University Choir, Milwaukee Children’s Choir and the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus.
A frequent guest conductor for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s Youth, Children’s, and Family concert series, Deutsch has worked with the Sheboygan Symphony, Aurora University’s Music by the Lake Opera Theater, Women’s Philharmonic (CA), Plymouth (MI) Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Charleston (SC) Symphony, Nebraska Sinfonia, Monroe (LA) Symphony, and the South Dakota Symphony.
Deutsch is actively involved with high school-age musicians throughout the country as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator. In 2017, she conducted the National Association for Music Education’s All-National Honor Orchestra in Orlando, Florida. In addition, she has led the all-state orchestras of New York, Massachusetts, Kansas, Missouri, Washington, Minnesota, Montana, Delaware and Maine, as well as numerous district and regional all-state festivals throughout the country. She served four terms on the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestra’s Youth Orchestra Division, which helps establish national policies for youth orchestras.
The recipient of numerous honors and awards, Deutsch received the 2001 Milwaukee Civic Music Association Award for Excellence in Contributions to Music and the 1990 UWM Undergraduate Teaching Award. She has been awarded conducting fellowships and scholarships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Academia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and the Nebraska-based “Festival of a Thousand Oaks.” She was also invited to participate in the conducting seminar at Tanglewood where she took master classes with Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa and Colin Davis. Her other teachers include Thomas Briccetti, Franco Ferrarra, Bruno Bartoletti, Piero Bellugi, Sergiu Comissiona and Dennis Russell Davies; she has also studied flute with Samuel Baron and voice with Jan DeGaetani. A native New Yorker and Regents Scholar, she holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting, a Master of Arts degree in Musicology, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Flute and Vocal Performance.
