Brendan Townsend
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Brendan Townsend is an internationally known conductor and cellist.
Born Brendan Sean Luke Townsend in Cork, Ireland on December 15, 1968. He is the son of musician, educator and conductor Dr. Declan Townsend.
After studying cello and chamber music from a very young age at the Cork School of Music with cellist Gerard Kelly, and chamber musician Constantine Zanidache he earned his Diploma of the Cork School of Music in 1988. He further achieved a Licentiate Diploma in Cello Performance from Trinity College, London. He spent a year in Essen, Germany where he took cello lessons from Young Chang Cho at the Folkwang Hochschule before transferring to the Conservatorium voor muziek, Maastricht the Netherlands where he attained a Docerend Musicus diploma in cello and an Uitvoerend Diploma in conducting in 1994. He was a cello student of Mirel Iancovici and a conducting student of Jan Stulen.
He guest conducted many ensembles in and around Europe before moving to the United States in 1997. There he was the Music Director of the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio 1997 - 2000, Director of Orchestras at the University of Incarnate Word (2000 - 2001), Interim Director of Orchestras at Tennessee Tech University (2001 - 2003) - concurrently serving as Music Director of the Bryan Symphony Orchestra - and is currently the Music Director of the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra (TX) and Assistant Professor of Music at Texas A&M International University and Laredo Community College. He also is the conductor of the Corpus Christi Area Youth Orchestras.
Known for his charisma and musicianship, Townsend is a leading advocate for the music of living composers, especially those works which have yet to achieve a place in popular orchestral repertoire. In recent years his concert programs have included works by Marion Ingoldsby, Declan Townsend, Stephen Dankner, David Avshalomov, Bruce Craig Roter, Peter Boyer, Nancy Galbraith, Christoper Rouse, Henryck Gorecki, Mikolaj Gorecki, Yoshimatsui, and Lowell Lieberman.
His performances of standard classical and romantic repertoire have been hailed as "Splendid", "Enchanting" and of "taking the audiences to unknown heights of celestial bliss" (Laredo Morning Times [1]).
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