Gregory Hustis
Festival Artistic Director

Hustis has been Chamber Music Director and Festival Artistic Advisor for 11 years and a member of the orchestra almost from the start of the Festival. Since 1976, he has been a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, where he is Principal Horn and has served on the board of directors. He also teaches horn at Southern Methodist University, where he received the Meadows Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995. A clinician, chamber music player and recitalist, he has performed at other summer music festivals, including Bravo!Vail, Sarasota Music Festival and Mainly Mozart in San Diego.

Arkady Fomin
Conservatory Artistic Director

Fomin is founder and Artistic Director of the New Conservatory of Dallas, which brought its summer music program to Durango in 1997. Currently he is a violinist with the Dallas Symphony and a member of the Clavier Trio, with which he has appeared several times at Carnegie Hall. Born in Riga, Latvia, Fomin has performed as a chamber musician and soloist and has collaborated in performances with such artists as Pinchas Zukerman, Yefin Bronfman, Emanuel Borok and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. He received the Cowlishaw Artist-in-Residence Award from the University of Texas at Dallas for artistic achievement.

Guillermo Figueroa
Music Director and Conductor

Figueroa is in his seventh season as Music Director and Conductor of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and recently completed his sixth and final season as Music Director of the Puerto Rico Symphony, becoming that orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor. Renowned both as a conductor and violinist, Figueroa was Concertmaster of the New York City Ballet for ten years and is a founding member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He and his violinist wife Valerie Turner are the founders and artistic directors of the acclaimed Festival de Musica Rondena chamber series in New Mexico.
For more information, visit: www.guillermofigueroa.com

Mischa Semanitzky
Founder and Conductor Laureate

Festival Artistic Director and Conductor for 21 years, Semanitzky founded the Festival in 1987, when there were five concerts with 11 musicians. He nurtured the growth of the Festival and in 1999 launched the year round Music in the Mountains Goes to School program for elementary and secondary school students in Durango, Cortez, Mancos, Ignacio, Pagosa Springs and Farmington, New Mexico. He made his Carnegie Recital Hall debut in 1972 and served as Concertmaster of the Nashville Symphony, Assistant Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony and Music Director and Conductor of the Pittsburgh Ballet and Les Grands Ballet Canadiens of Montreal.