Conductor and Percussionist James Beauton is currently the Director of Orchestra and Classical Music Studies at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. He began his conducting career in 2017 as director of the UC San Diego Wind Ensemble, where he led the group through a wide range of repertoire, including several world premieres. Beauton emerged on the orchestral podium in 2019, conducting a performance of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite with the Villa Musica Summer Orchestra in San Diego. Shortly following, he became assistant conductor of the Coachella Valley Symphony, a position that included directing the Buddy Rogers Youth Symphony. James was also director of the Mt. San Jacinto College Concert Band and founded and conducted the Villa Musica Chamber Players in San Diego. The 2023-24 season will be James’ first as Music Director of the Winchester Orchestra of San Jose.

2022-23 was James’ inaugural season with the Ruth Asawa SOTA Orchestra, featuring debut performances of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, Debussy’s La Mer, and Mozart’s Requiem in D minor. 2023-24 guest conducting highlights include the California premiere of Nick DiBerardino’s Double Percussion Concerto with Mission Chamber Orchestra of San Jose, and a performance of the Lord of the Rings Symphony with the Villa Musica Summer Orchestra in San Diego.

In a workshop setting, James has conducted the Chamber Orchestra of New York, in which he learned from maestros John Farrer, Dirk Brossé, and Edward Cumming. He has also worked closely with maestro Neil Thompson and Dr. Scott Weiss at the Los Angeles Conducting Workshop and Competition, where he was selected as a finalist both in 2022 and 2023. 

As a concert percussionist, James was the grand prize winner of the 2012 Southern California International Marimba Competition, and performed as a member of Steven Schick’s renowned percussion ensemble, red fish blue fish, from 2015-2020. As a soloist, James has performed some of the most demanding music in the percussion repertoire, including works of Stockhausen, Lachenmann, Manoury, Xenakis, Donatoni, Ferneyhough, and Grisey, among others, and has been a concerto soloist with the Michigan State University Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, the Contemporary Chamber Players, and at the Stony Brook Day of Percussion. As a chamber musician, he has performed as a part of Monday Evening Concerts and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Noon To Midnight Festival and is a founding member of the percussion trio Tala Rasa, where they commissioned several composers, including Alejandro Vinao. James earned his Doctorate in Contemporary Music Performance from UC San Diego, a Masters in Percussion from SUNY Stony Brook, and a Bachelors of Music from Michigan State University. 

Equipped with a mastery of the percussion repertoire, a theoretical background in media theory, and a robust practical application of recording technology, James’ scholarly work includes a published dissertation that explores the symbiotic connection of classical musicians and 21st century life. James is a Yamaha Performing Artist.

Scott Seaton

Music Director 2019 – 2022

American conductor Scott Seaton has been praised for possessing “finesse, clarity, and precision” by the Luxembourg Times and has left audiences “breathless” according to Entertainment News Northwest.  He is in his fourth season as Music Director of the North State Symphony in Northern California where he has garnered acclaim for his dynamic performances, innovative programming, and community and youth outreach.  From 2012-2015, he led the Minot Symphony Orchestra to new artistic heights and forged exciting collaborations on the local and state levels.  Seaton is also the Principal Conductor of the Veridian Symphony Orchestra.  As an artistic leader, he has collaborated with such artists as Project Trio, Alessio Bax, Gabriela Martinez, Charlie Albright, and Sara Davis Buechner.

Since his international debut in 2007 with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Seaton has conducted orchestras spanning North America, South America, and Europe.  Upcoming and recent engagements include the Evansville Philharmonic, Kamloops Symphony, Spartanburg Philharmonic, Mercury Soul, Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, Pennsylvania Centre Orchestra, the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra (Denmark), Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Toronto Philharmonia Orchestra, Mansfield Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, Portland Columbia Symphony, and the Western Plains Opera.  He has also appeared with the Brandenburger Symphoniker, Fort Worth Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Winnipeg Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Magdeburg Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orquesta Filarmónica de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cincinnati Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra.

Seaton won the 2011 INTERAKTION competition and was given the opportunity to conduct an orchestra composed of all of Germany’s top orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Konzerthaus Orchestra, German Symphony Orchestra, and the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin.  As a semi-finalist in the 2012 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition (Frankfurt, Germany), he placed in the top ten conductors from a pool of over 400 conductors from 73 countries that were initially considered.  He was a finalist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Sir Georg Solti Conducting Competition as well as a quarter-finalist in the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition.

Equally at home with the operatic repertoire, Seaton regularly collaborates with the Bel Canto Singers bringing semi-staged productions to Redding, California.  He has served as Assistant Conductor of Festival Opera (Walnut Creek, California) where he worked on several productions from Puccini’s Turandot to Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with conductor Michael Morgan.

An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music, Seaton has conducted numerous premieres in the past several years.  He has curated programs and championed music by living composers such as Libby Larsen, Mason Bates, Adam Schoenberg, David Hertzberg, Pierre Jalbert, and Maria Grenfell, to name a few.  In 2007, he gave his Jordan Hall debut at the New England Conservatory with the New England Collective Chamber Orchestra performing works by emerging talents in the Boston area. Additionally, he appeared on New Music for the Sonically Curious, a series of performances in Boston devoted to works of composers in the New England area.  He has worked with the New York City-based Mimesis, an ensemble dedicated to the music of living composers.  He has also recorded several works with FiveOne in Cleveland.

Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Seaton has earned degrees from the Université de Montréal, the New England Conservatory, and Vanderbilt University.  He has also studied at Tanglewood and the National Conducting Institute sponsored by the National Symphony Orchestra.  His mentors include Michael Morgan, Jean-François Rivest, Robin Fountain, Charles Peltz, and Carol Nies.  Seaton has undertaken additional studies with Kurt Masur, David Zinman, Stefan Asbury, Gustav Meier, Marin Alsop, Jorma Panula, Larry Rachleff, Kenneth Kiesler, Alexander Mickelthwate, Peter Eötvös, Leonard Slatkin, and Zsolt Nagy, among others.

An avid cyclist and runner, Seaton recently did a solo coast-to-coast cycling expedition from Oregon to Massachusetts.  As a marathoner, he has run races in Los Angeles, Calgary, Vancouver, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Fargo, to name a few.  He qualified for and ran in the 2018 Boston Marathon.

Visit him online at www.scott-seaton.com.

Michael DiGiacinto

Music Director 2014 – 2018

Conductor, composer, and pianist Michael DiGiacinto was the Music Director of the Winchester Orchestra of San Jose and is Associate Music Director of the Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale. Previously, he was the Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra and Opera Theater at San Jose State University.

In addition to conducting much of the standard repertoire for orchestra, Mr. DiGiacinto has conducted over 100 premieres for various ensembles, ranging from chamber ensembles to orchestras and choirs. As a pianist and a vocalist performing in various ensembles, he has premiered many more new works. As a composer, Mr. DiGiacinto’s music has been heard in venues throughout the United States and Europe as well as on NPR and PBS. He has participated in festivals in Fontainebleau, France and Kiev, Ukraine where his music was well received.

As a collaborative pianist, Michael DiGiacinto has performed with various ensembles including regional and state honor choirs in California, Virginia, and New York as well as collegiate choirs at New York University, Hofstra University, and San Jose State University, and chamber ensembles. While living in New York, he was also a staff accompanist with Francisco Núñez and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City.

A tireless advocate for arts education, Mr. DiGiacinto is an active member of the National Association for Music Education and has been involved with numerous efforts to bring music to schools and communities in need. Through the Outreach Department at Manhattan School of Music, he coordinated programs including group lessons and presentations on the orchestra, opera, and jazz at schools where arts programs are chronically underfunded or do not exist. Mr. DiGiacinto has also been active in bringing arts programs to refugee communities in the West Bank, Palestine.

Michael DiGiacinto has served on the faculties of San Jose State University, Hofstra University, and the Manhattan School of Music. He received his Bachelors degree in Music Education from New York University and his Masters degree in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music where he is also a doctoral candidate. His principal composition teachers were Nils Vigeland, Richard Danielpour, and Marc-Antonio Consoli.

Henry Mollicone  

Founder and Conductor Emeritus in Perpetuity
March 20, 1946 – May 12, 2022

A graduate of the New England Conservatory, Henry Mollicone’s one-act operas, commissioned by The Central City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, and The Minnesota Opera, have been performed extensively. The Face on the Barroom Floor, a recipient of the American Composers’ Recording Award, is one of America’s most oft-performed contemporary operas, and has also been produced in Europe.

Emperor Norton was given its New York premiere in January, 2015 at Chelsea Opera on a double bill with The Face on the Barroom Floor, conducted by the composer from the piano. His full-length operas Coyote Tales, Hotel Eden, and Gabriel’s Daughter have been premiered respectively at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera San Jose and The Central City Opera, with librettos by Sheldon Harnick, Judith Fein and William Luce. 

Mr. Mollicone has been a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow since 1997, and has served on panels for The National Endowment for the Arts.

Mr. Mollicone has written works for orchestra, voice, chorus, ballet, and solo voice, as well as music for film, television, and theater, including the Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis). He has worked with several distinguished actors as a conductor, composer, and pianist, including Jean Stapleton, David Ogden Stiers, Tovah Feldshuh, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Angela Lansbury. As music director and founder of The Winchester Orchestra for many years, Mr. Mollicone is now Conductor Emeritus

His works have been performed by many distinguished artists, including JoAnn Falletta, Frederica Von Stade, Amy Burton, Music from Copland House Players, Erie Mills, Maria Spacagna, D’Anna Fortunato and Marnie Breckenridge.

During the 2009-2010 season, his Beatitude Mass (“Mass for the Homeless”) has been performed by the Monterey Symphony Chorus, the Bristol Phoenix Choir (England), the Rackham Symphony Choir (Detroit), the Georgetown Chorale (Washington, DC) and the Seattle First Baptist Church Choir (Seattle, WA), raising several thousand dollars for organizations that serve the homeless. The world premiere of his Misa de los Inmigrantes, Mass for the Immigrants, was premiered by the San Jose Symphonic Choir in March 2010. His compositions Misteria, for piano solo, and Flowers of the Soul, a song cycle for soprano solo and piano trio, were given their New England premieres at the Newport Music Festival (Newport, RI), with Metropolitan Opera soprano Teresa Cincione, and concert pianist, Daniel del Pino. Mollicone’s one-act opera, The Face on the Barroom Floor will be given several performances at the Central City Opera in Colorado (the work has been performed annually as part of its summer festival since 1978.

Mr. Mollicone’s opera, Lady Bird, with librettist Sheldon Harnick, was premiered by Texas State University at San Marcos in 2016.  He was working on a new opera at the time of his passing in May of 2022.

Visit his website: www.henrymollicone.com for more information.