One of the premiere American conductors of his generation, LESLIE B. DUNNER enjoys an international career, distinguished by the breadth of his repertoire as well as his electrifying and critically lauded performances.

Following a summer that included another return to South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra and a two-month stint as Interim Director of Mexico’s Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, Leslie B. Dunner’s current season includes a return engagement with Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts. He also returns to Mexico, leading the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2011 Pan American Games, a special concert/ballet presentation of Bizet’s Carmen and holiday performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

Leslie B. Dunner's guest conducting engagements have taken him around the globe. United States concert engagements have includes the major orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Louisville, Minnesota, New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC, in addition to numerous regional orchestras. Other North American orchestras have included those of Edmonton, Halifax, Québec, Windsor and México City. Abroad, he has conducted Russia's St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Camerata, the Estonian National Symphony, South Africa's Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestras, National and Transvaal Symphony Orchestras and Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Emilia-Romagna "Arturo Toscanini" in Italy and the Symphony Orchestra of Madrid on tour in Portugal. In 1996, he stepped in as a last-minute replacement for Lord Yehudi Menuhin on the Warsaw Sinfonia's debut tour of South Africa, earning enthusiastic critical acclaim for three "Mostly Beethoven" programs.

Equally at home with ballet and opera, Leslie B. Dunner has led performances of American Ballet Theatre (at New York City’s City Center and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC), New York City Ballet, The Washington Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet (in Chicago and at Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion), Dance Theatre of Harlem, Madison Ballet, Orlando Ballet, The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, The Birmingham Royal Ballet (at home, in London and on tour throughout England), Michigan Opera Theatre and The South African Ballet Theatre, while opera productions have been conducted in Pretoria, South Africa and with Opera Ebony in New York City. Of special note is his having conducted Opera Africa’s production of Mziliazi Khumalo’s Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu at Oslo’s Den Norske Opera. From 2003 to 2009, Dr. Dunner served as Music Director and Principal Conductor of The Joffrey Ballet.

In 1999, Leslie B. Dunner ended an 11-season association with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, having held the posts of Resident, Associate and Assistant Conductor. During this time, he led the Orchestra in every type of program, from subscription and tour concerts to Pops, Educational and Young People’s Concerts. In addition to leading successful performances during the DSO’s 1998 tour of Japan, he served as producer of its 1997 holiday CD, Joy! In 1999, his live-recording performance of Alvin Singleton’s BluesKonzert with pianist Ursula Oppens and the DSO was released to critical acclaim on the album Ellington and the Great Masters. From 1996-1999, Dr. Dunner was Music Director of Canada’s Symphony Nova Scotia; subsequently, he served five seasons as Music Director of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, where he reinvigorated that institution and brought it national recognition for its artistic achievements, wide-ranging programming, composer-in-residence forum and innovative educational experiences.

From 1994 through 2001, Leslie B. Dunner served as an assistant conductor to Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, accompanying them in this capacity on their 1995 10-city European tour. From 1987 to 1994, he was Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Civic and Dearborn Symphony Orchestras, Music Advisor for the Harlem Festival Orchestra and a cover conductor for Erich Leinsdorf at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he was Principal Conductor of the renowned Dance Theatre of Harlem, leading performances throughout North and South America, The United Kingdom (including a gala performance for Diana, Princess of Wales), Austria's Salzburg Festival, Denmark's Tivoli Festival, the former Soviet Union and on the troupe’s  historic 1992 debut tour of South Africa, during which they performed in the presence of Nelson Mandela. With DTH he also served as music advisor for several European television productions.

Leslie B. Dunner is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including both the "Distinguished Achievement" and "James Weldon Johnson" awards from the NAACP, the 1996 "Distinguished Young Alumnus" award from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, proclamations and commendations from city and state chambers throughout Maryland, Michigan and New York as well as the National Association of Negro Musicians. In Detroit, he has also received the "Man of the Year" and "Spirit of Detroit" awards from Zeta Phi Beta Sorority. Dr. Dunner was the first winner of the Colorado Philharmonic National Conducting Competition, the first American prize-winner of the prestigious Arturo Toscanini International Conducting Competition and the first multiple prize-winner from Ukraine’s 2003 International Jordania Conducting Competition. In 1994, he was chosen to participate in the American Symphony Orchestra League's "Leonard Bernstein American Conductors' Program." Most recently, he was the recipient of Chicago’s 2009 "3Arts Award" for his contributions to the musical life of Chicago.

When not conducting, Leslie B. Dunner composes and performs as a clarinetist. As a clarinetist, he has been heard in the United States and throughout Canada on CBC Radio, while his compositions have been successfully performed, throughout the United States and abroad. His Motherless Child Songs, recorded by the Minnesota Composers Forum, is available on the Innova label, and his 1993 recording with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Magical, Mystical Mouse (music from animated films), is available on the Pro Arte label. His most recent work, The Whirligigs of Time: Twelfth Night Suite for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, was premiered by the Prince George’s Philharmonic in March 2006. Five Movements in Color, a symphonic work by the African-American composer Mary Watkins, was released by Albany Records in 2010, and his newest recording, Florence B. Price’s Concerto in One Movement and Symphony in e, was issued in 2011, also by Albany.

A native New Yorker, Leslie B. Dunner holds advanced degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, Queens College in New York City and the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music. He serves on the advisory boards of Houston’s Opera Vista, World Artist Experience in Annapolis and The International Jordania Conducting Competition in Chattanooga.

"Stravinsky’s score [Le Sacre du printemps] arrives as if digging up the foundations. The music at the Joffrey is conducted with force and color by Leslie B. Dunner: the opening music to both halves of the score, when you are waiting for the curtain to rise, becomes unusually riveting."
THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Driving all this movement was the orchestra. This production [Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet] marks the first official collaboration among the Joffrey, the Chicago Sinfonietta and newly appointed music director and conductor Leslie B. Dunner. There is every indication that this will be an ideal relationship."
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

"Some of the most consistently compelling playing I've heard from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra came at the hands of guest conductor Leslie B. Dunner. Mr. Dunner wasted not a motion all evening, and it told in playing of crisp focus and clear direction. Bring him back!"
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

"He's no slouch with the Western canon, as the opening selection from Egmont proved. Dunner coaxed the requisite contrasts, developed a strong pace, and encouraged full-bodied, sumptuous sonority."
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

"You could feel the musicians responding to Dunner's direction with an eagerness born of respect rather than duty, and the result was immensely satisfying."
DETROIT FREE PRESS

"Dunner has a smooth, fluent style and a lot of charm; he brought the crowd to its feet."
THE WASHINGTON POST

"Careful preparation was evident in every section and both major works received exceptionally fine performances. Our professional, well-constituted musical organization and our talented, well-prepared music director have begun to demonstrate that miraculous synthesis of talents that transforms otherwise competent readings into thrilling musical experiences."
THE CAPITAL (Annapolis)

"RETOOLED Nutcracker stimulating yet reassuring Conducting the Louisville Orchestra, principal guest conductor Leslie B. Dunner drew a fundamentally keen and brisk account of Tchaikovsky’s score. This production restores a significant amount of music in Act Two, and the additions are yet another reason that ‘The Brown-Forman Nutcracker’ deserves a long and successful run."
THE COURIER-JOURNAL (Louisville)

7/29/2011 (7pm) ORQUESTA FILARMÓNICA DE JALISCO
Teatro Degollado (Guadalajara)
Sibelius: Andante festivo
Haydn: Symphony #6
Pärt: Cantus in Memoriam, Benjamin Britten
Mozart: Symphony #38

8/6/2011 (5:30pm) KWAZULU-NATAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
8/7/2011 (5:30pm) Chris Saunders Park (Durban, South Africa)
"Starlight Pop Opera"

10/14/2011 (9pm) ORQUESTA FILARMÓNICA DE JALISCO
Omnilife Stadium (Zapopan, Mexico)
"The Opening of the 2011 Pan American Games"

10/20/2011 (8:30pm) ORQUESTA FILARMÓNICA DE JALISCO
Plaza de Toros (Guadalajara, Mexico)
Bizet: Carmen

11/30/2011 (8pm) ORQUESTA FILARMÓNICA DE JALISCO
Teatro Diana (Guadalajara, Mexico)
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
with Compañia de Ballet de Jalisco

12/8/2011 (8:30pm) ORQUESTA FILARMÓNICA DE JALISCO
12/9/2011 (8:30pm) Teatro Degollado (Guadalajara, Mexico)
12/11/2011 (10:30pm) Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
with Compañia de Ballet de Jalisco

2/2/2012 (7:30pm) CHICAGO COLLEGE OF PERFORMING ARTS
Harris Theater for Music & Dance at Millenium Park
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
soloist: David Lakirovich
Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem
soloists: Alberto Mizrahi, cantor
Jonita Lattimore, soprano
Cynthia Clarey, mezzo-soprano
, tenor