MARKAND THAKAR

Core Studies, Conducting

Peabody Institute, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra

Markand Thakar is renowned world-wide as one of the major conducting pedagogues of the 21st century. For 20 years co-director of Graduate Conducting (with Gustav Meier) at the Peabody Conservatory, he is Director of Conducting Programs International and frequent Visiting Faculty at the Juan N. Corpas University School of Music in Bogota, Colombia.

As a conductor Maestro Thakar has appeared with some 40 orchestras across North America, in addition to orchestras in Asia and Europe. Currently Music Director emeritus of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, his career included stints as Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony, and Music Director of the Duluth Superior Symphony. Notable among his studies was his work with the legendary conductor Sergiu Celibidache. Thakar is the author of On the Principles and Practice of Conducting (University of Rochester Press, 2016) Looking for the "Harp” Quartet: An Investigation into Musical Beauty (University of Rochester Press, 2011), and Counterpoint: Fundamentals of Music Making (Yale University Press, 1990).

Students of Maestro Thakar have won significant conducting positions across North America and internationally, including music directorships in Germany, France, South Korea, Spain, Bulgaria, and across the US and Canada; staff positions with the orchestras of New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, et al. His students have won Grand Prize in the Malko, Eduardo Mata, Memphis International, Mario Gusella International, and Fifth International Prokofiev Conducting Competitions.