“Why do you always insist on playing while I’m trying to conduct?”
– Eugene Ormandy
Harry Davidson is in his twenty-fourth season as Music Director and Conductor of the Duke Symphony Orchestra and Professor of the Practice of Music at Duke University. In the spring of 2007, he was also named Music Director and Conductor of Opera at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he has previously appeared as a guest conductor. In this position, he conducts one opera production each semester at CIM while continuing in his role as Music Director of the Duke Symphony Orchestra.
In July 2000, he made his major orchestral conducting debut, leading the National Symphony Orchestra in concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Mr. Davidson has guest-conducted orchestras in Austria, Finland, and the
United States, including the Charlotte and Akron symphonies, as well as the Symphony Orchestra and Choral Union at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, where he held a residency. He has held the positions of Associate Conductor of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, Professor of Music and Director of Orchestra at Wichita State University, Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Akron. He sometimes serves as a cover conductor for the North Carolina Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Mr. Davidson was a finalist in both the Antal Dorati Conducting Competition with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Hans Swarowsky Conducting Competition in Vienna, Austria.
