About our conductor: Stephen Chenette

Stephen Chenette has been the Music Director of the Northdale Concert Band since 1996. He is Professor of Music, Emeritus, at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music, where he taught for 29 years, retiring in 2001. He was Head of Brass, taught trumpet, conducting, orchestral repertoire, and chamber music, and conducted the Wind Symphony, Concert Band, and Brass Choir.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, with an MFA degree from the University of Minnesota, he played in major American orchestras for sixteen years, including principal trumpet in the Minnesota Orchestra, Boston Pops, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Denver Symphony. His trumpet teachers include the principal trumpeters of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, and New York Philharmonic, the Mexican virtuoso, Rafael Mendez, and the renowned pedagogue, Arnold Jacobs. As a conductor, he has studied privately and in classes with Leonard Bernstein, Hans Swarowsky, Frederick Fennell, Jean Morel, George Trautwine, and William R. Smith.

He is conductor of Toronto's Hannaford Street Silver Band on two acclaimed CDs on the Canadian Broadcasting Company's SM-5000 series, has conducted orchestras and bands in the U.S.A. and Canada, and starting in 1998, he has made annual guest conducting trips to Russia and Ukraine. In the fall of 2002, he conducted professional concert bands in the Russian cities of Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Barnaul (Siberia), and in Kiev, Ukraine. Stephen Chenette is a charter member of the International Trumpet Guild, has served four terms on its Board of Directors, two as Secretary, and is currently past president. He is on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Band Association (Ontario).

© Northdale Concert Band 2008