Allen Tinkham Portrait. Kristin Lorenzen Photography.

PRESS HIGHLIGHTS

“He knows what he wants and how to get it." - Chicago Tribune

"...very obviously an excellent conductor, with solid musical ideas and the ability to communicate those ideas...." - The Daily Telegram

“Only a youth orchestra undergirded by strong programs of instrumental pedagogy could have done justice to so difficult and demanding an opus.” – Chicago Tribune

“[The orchestra] presented the "Rite" as a seamless, gripping whole—precise of rhythm and intonation, clean of ensemble, confidently executed down to the morbid spasm that brings the ballet to an exhausted conclusion.” – Chicago Tribune

"His vigorous, communicative baton brought forth an adrenalin rush of superior playing...." - Chicago Tribune

“That isn’t to say that this ensemble, made up of musicians in their teens, is on a par with the world-class orchestras, local and touring, that grace Chicago’s classical music scene. Yet, under the baton and leadership of longtime Music Director Allen Tinkham, it is not so far off as you might imagine.” – Third Coast Review

"...just as carefully chosen and beautifully executed as the rest of the programme...." - MUSO Magazine

“It’s a remarkable thing to have a youth orchestra take on quite this much new music. None of these pieces would be easy to play for even professionals. As such the collection is an entirely impressive feat.” - Classically Colleen

“The Chicago Youth [Symphony] Orchestra under conductor Allen Tinkham is excellent too; its dynamism and color match the soloist’s own at every turn.” - Fanfare

“There is no way I could tell this was a “youth symphony orchestra” as opposed to a fully professional one. The age range of performers is 14 to 18. This disc is an astonishing achievement all round.” - Fanfare

“All credit is due to conductor Allen Tinkham, too, for instilling the feeling of a live performance into this recording.” - Fanfare

“The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Allen Tinkham, delivers a vibrant and nuanced performance. Tinkham’s conducting is marked by a clear vision and an ability to draw out the best in his young musicians. His reputation as an inspiring conductor and educator is well-deserved, as he manages to lead the CYSO with a blend of precision and passion. The orchestra’s performance on this album is a remarkable achievement, demonstrating a maturity and cohesion that belies their youth.” - 5 Finger Review

"Allen Tinkham, it is safe to predict, will one day...garner a major U.S. podium of his own." - Chicago Tribune

APPOINTMENTS

Music Director, Chicago Composers Orchestra | 2015-
Music Director, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras | 2001-
Apprentice Conductor, Oregon Symphony Orchestra | 1999-2001

ABOUT

"A conductor is a conduit for
people's deepest emotions.
You try to live inside
the music and hope it
has an affect on people."
- Allen Tinkham

Acclaimed for his insightful interpretations and impassioned performances and respected for his exceptional artistry and innovative programming, Allen Tinkham is increasingly recognized as one of the most inspiring and exciting conductors and teachers of our time. He is hailed by the Chicago Tribune as both a conductor and teacher, described as working “wonders” as one of the most important educators, mentors and inspirational guides in the training of future orchestral professionals and defined by his “communicative” conducting producing “an adrenalin rush of superior playing.”

Under his leadership as the music director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO), both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times have described performances of the flagship Symphony Orchestra aged 14-18 as "professional level," and the Chicago Tribune has noted his “impressive” conducting and “uncanny control” and has compared the CYSO Symphony Orchestra's "ferocity and theatricality" to that of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Regarded for reimagining the youth orchestra of the 21st century, Tinkham is a tireless champion for orchestral music education. He oversees all artistic programming and faculty at CYSO, where in the last two decades programs and annual budget have tripled under his leadership. Today, CYSO is four full orchestras, three string orchestras, one jazz orchestra, and four steel pan orchestras. In 2019, Tinkham launched Classical Orchestral Repertory Ensemble (CORE), a new CYSO orchestra exclusively programming Classical orchestral repertoire.

“Over the last two decades
Maestro Tinkham has brought
tremendous growth and change
to CYSO, re-imagining what the
youth orchestra of the 21st
century needs to be.”
- Holly H. Hudak, Former CYSO Executive Director

Season highlights with CYSO include Shostakovich Symphony No. 10, Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5, Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3, and Mozart Symphony No. 39. At the end of the season, he will lead the orchestra in his tenth international tour to Spain including a performance at the prestigious Granada Festival. To celebrate this tour to Spain, the season gala “Spanish Rhapsody” will feature excerpts from Bizet’s Carmen, de Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. He also returns as a guest conductor for the DePaul School of Music Symphony Orchestra with Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6.

Tinkham again highlights women composers throughout the season including Hymn for Everyone by Jessie Montgomery performed with both the CYSO Symphony Orchestra and the DePaul School of Music Symphony Orchestra. The CYSO Symphony Orchestra will also perform Margaret Bonds Montgomery Variations, and the work will be included in the program the Symphony Orchestra takes on tour to Spain celebrating Margaret Bonds not only as a Black American composer but as one of the most important composers born in Chicago.

Renowned for his extensive repertoire and groundbreaking programming, he combines a deep love for the late-romantic through post-romantic and 20th century modernist repertoire including The Second Viennese School—Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Respighi, Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky, Bartok, Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Sibelius, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski, Schoenberg, Webern, and Varese—as well as the neo-romantic American repertoire—including Bernstein, Barber, and Copland—with his commitment to diverse voices and contemporary music.

Tinkham has conducted over one hundred Chicago and world premieres and has won nine American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers National Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music (ASCAP). He has programmed works from iconic composers such as Phillip Glass, Arvo Pärt, and Pierre Boulez; Pulitzer prize winners David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Bernard Rands; and a next generation of composers such as Gabriel Prokofiev, Marcus Norris, and Anna Clyne.

Tinkham has championed American and underrepresented composers—from his very first program with CYSO at Carnegie Hall in 2002 including a premiere by Augusta Read Thomas alongside a work by William Grant Still to 2019 when Tinkham and CYSO were the first to perform Black American composer George Walker in Russia as well as the first American orchestra to perform his Address for Orchestra in Europe. His programming has included composers from Florence Price to Jennifer Higdon and Kareem Roustom to Wynton Marsalis.

"New music is new ideas.
I can't think of another time
in world history when it was
more important for us to have
open ears and open minds.
Contemporary music
encourages that in us,
consciously and subconsciously."
- Allen Tinkham

Tinkham is also in his tenth season as the music director of the Chicago Composers Orchestra (CCO). Chicago Magazine reflected at his appointment on his “well-respected” conducting and advocacy for contemporary music. Each season, Tinkham leads the “energized, risk-taking orchestra” (Chicago Tribune) in new contemporary works of mostly local and world premieres and was recently praised by the Chicago Classical Review for leading the orchestra with the “cohesion of a long-established chamber group.”

In his first season with CYSO, Tinkham led the CYSO Symphony Orchestra in its Carnegie Hall Presents debut as well as its first live broadcast performance and recording release. Today, WFMT regularly broadcasts CYSO Symphony Orchestra live performances including the critically acclaimed performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in 2011. Tinkham has led the orchestra in eight international tours including six tours to Europe as well as tours to China and South America.

Tinkham led the CYSO Symphony Orchestra in the critically acclaimed and GRAMMY nominated album released by Cedille Records in 2019 featuring CYSO alumni Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, and Demarre McGill, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s principal flutist, in works for flute, clarinet, and orchestra including the album’s title track Winged Creatures composed by celebrated Black American composer Michael Abels.

This past summer, Cedille Records released Storyteller: Contemporary Concertos for Trumpet, which celebrates the narrative power of the trumpet with soloist and CYSO alumna Mary Elizabeth Bowden accompanied by the CYSO with Tinkham conducting. The recording is a testament to a commitment by CYSO, Tinkham, and Bowden to expanding the trumpet repertoire, and it features world premiere recordings of works by James Stephenson, Clarice Assad, Vivian Fung, Tyson Gholston Davis, and Sarah Kirkland Snider.

Tinkham also led CYSO in 2019 in the award winning and critically acclaimed Classical Kids production, Gershwin’s Magic Key. This season the orchestra records the latest Classical Kids Live! show, Saint-Georges’ Sword & Bow, which celebrates the work and life of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. CYSO is the only youth orchestra program to record demos for the highly acclaimed Classical Kids Live! series of productions for professional orchestra family and education concerts.

Open to exploring new avenues to engage the modern audience, Tinkham has performed in collaborations with the Chicago Bulls, The Second City, and the Blue Man Group. In 2018, he collaborated with Google artist Teek Mach for a virtual reality performance experience to the score of Barber’s Adagio for Strings and was a guest on a panel at SXSB 2018 for how emerging technologies can enlighten the modern orchestra concert format.

"Classical music is a business
that is often rooted in the past,
but Allen relinquishes those
shackles. He seeks progress.
He strives for different thinking
in order to benefit…a modern
generation. I know the future of
music will be better because of it."
- Saurab Bhargava, CYSO Board Member

Versatile in many genres—extending back to his days in his high school jazz band and then as a graduate student in the University of Michigan’s steel band, Panchita, Tinkham has performed with Ben Folds, My Brightest Diamond, and with My Morning Jacket at the legendary rock festival Lollapooza. He has also performed and collaborated extensively with Uniting Voices Chicago and President and Artistic Director Josephine Lee including a collaboration with Chance the Rapper featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2021.

In demand nationally as a music educator and conductor, Tinkham has been a frequent guest conductor for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as part of the Chicago Youth In Music Festival. He has led numerous All-State Festival Orchestras across the U.S. as well as summer music festivals including the Oklahoma Arts Institute. Tinkham also teaches conducting and solfege at the Columbia College of Chicago in the MFA program in Music Composition for the Screen, recently ranked the top film composition program by the Hollywood Reporter.

For six seasons, Tinkham was the assistant conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s holiday series and has also been a cover conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and other major orchestras. Guest conducting engagements have included the Members of Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. He has also conducted choral and ballet works with the Roosevelt University Conservatory Chorus, Wicker Park Choral Singers, and the Salt Creek Ballet.

The Illinois Council of Orchestras awarded Tinkham the Conductor of the Year award in 2019. With CYSO, Tinkham has received three Illinois Council of Orchestras Youth Orchestra of the Year awards and four Illinois Council of Orchestras Programming of the Year awards. Tinkham currently is on the boards of the Illinois Council of Orchestras and the League of America Orchestras Youth Orchestra division.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island to music teachers, Tinkham first received music training at home on the piano and began the French Horn at age ten and Double Bass at age fourteen. Following completion of a Double Bachelor of Music Theory and Music Performance at the Eastman School of Music, Tinkham was the youngest recipient of the Helen and Clyde Wu Conducting Fellowship at the University of Michigan for the Master of Conducting.

Tinkham’s principal conducting teachers were David Effron, Kenneth Kiesler, Murry Sidlin, James DePreist, and David Zinman, and he also received coaching in masterclasses from Christoph Eschenbach, Gustav Meier, Jorma Panula, Larry Rachleff, Gunther Schuller, Gerard Schwarz, and Michael Tilson-Thomas. For two summers, Tinkham attended the American Academy of Conducting of the Aspen Music Festival.

He was invited to two international competitions, the Malko Competition and the Sir Georg Solti International Conductors Competition and was featured in the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter Preview. Tinkham began his conducting career as apprentice conductor at the Oregon Symphony Orchestra mentoring under the late conductor and poet James DePreist. He was appointed music director of the CYSO in 2000 before the end of his apprenticeship—the youngest to win the post in its history.

"Bringing music to life
from the score is a bit like
being a priest or a rabbi.
The life of a conductor is
mostly one of study,
not being on the stage…."
- Allen Tinkham

PROGRAM BIOGRAPY AVAILABLE ON REQUEST. PLEASE DO NOT EDIT WITHOUT PERMISSION.

2023/24 season highlights with CYSO included Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Stravinky’s Petrushka (1947), Beethoven’s First Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony. For the 2023/24 season, he was also a regular guest conductor for the DePaul School of Music Symphony Orchestra for four performances in programs including Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1919), Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony, Barber’s First Symphony, Bernstein’s On The Waterfront, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and Brahms’ Second Symphony.

Tinkham also celebrated women composers including the Chicago premiere of Sunburst by Augusta Read Thomas as well as Pandora Undone by Stacy Garrop with CYSO. With the DePaul School of Music Symphony Orchestra, he programmed Blue Cathedral by Jennifer Higdon and Overture by Jessie Montgomery. Other season highlights included George Walker’s Address for Orchestra with the DePaul School of Music Symphony Orchestra as well as rare performances with CYSO of Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige and Grand Slam Jam to celebrate the 125th year of Ellington’s birth.

2022/23 SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

2022/23 season highlights with CYSO included Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben and Webern’s Passacaglia as well as the premiere of Clarice Assad’s Bohemian Queen—a trumpet concerto with alumna and soloist Mary Bowden. The season also included performances at The Midwest Clinic featuring women, Black, Iranian, and Latine composers and a program of all Black composers at the first Black Heritage Performing Arts Festival in Chicago.

Tinkham continued his commitment to women and Black composers by programming the following composers in the 2023/2024 season alone: Jessie Montgomery, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Anna Clyne, Clarice Assad, Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Lili Boulanger, Tyson Gholston Davis, Sarah Kirkland Snyder, Ellen Taafe Zwilich, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Jonathan Bailey Holland. Tinkham also led CYSO in a performance with alumna and pioneering artist Laurie Anderson at the CYSO’s Women In Music gala in February.

With CCO, Tinkham led the premiere of Jeffery Mumford’s verdant cycles of deepening spring, a violin concerto with orchestra with violinist Christine Wu—with that live performance recently released on Albany Records, as well as the premieres of several works commissioned by the National Endowment of the Arts including Matthew Arrellin’s Overpainted Photographs for Flute and Orchestra with flutist Dalia Chin and Laura Schwendinger’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with pianist Marta Aznavoorian.

ALLEN TINKHAM

DIRECTOR, CONDUCTOR, EDUCATOR, ADVISOR, SPEAKER