Sylvia Alimena,
Music Director

Sylvia Alimena, recently voted by the Washingtonian Magazine as one of the

members of their Music Hall of Fame, has an active conducting schedule

throughout the Washington, DC area as music director and conductor of the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, Brass of Peace, the venerated Friday Morning Music Club Orchestra and now The McLean Orchestra. She is currently also a hornist with the National Symphony Orchestra. A native of Long Island, New York, she began playing the French horn in the Hicksville Public Schools at age nine. Her first private lessons were at age fifteen when she was awarded a full scholarship to study privately with Arthur E. Goldstein, formerly of the Chicago Symphony. Miss Alimena continued her musical studies at Boston University and was a pupil of Harry Shapiro of the Boston Symphony. In 1981 she was a first place winner of the Boston University Concerto Aria Competition and in the summer of that year was awarded a fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center.

In 1980, Ms. Alimena began her professional career in Boston as a member of

the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, the Beacon

Brass Quintet, and as Principal horn of the Boston Lyric Opera and the New

Hampshire Symphony. In 1983, she was critically acclaimed for  her solo and

offstage playing in the Boston Lyric Opera's New York and Boston productions of Wagner's Das Ring Des Nibelungen. In November of that year, the Beacon Brass Quintet made its Carnegie Hall Debut as the only brass quintet ever to win the coveted Concert Artists Guild Award. After one year with the Utah Symphony under conductor Joseph Silverstein, Ms. Alimena arrived in Washington in the fall of 1985 to take the position of second horn of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Alimena's conducting career began in January of 1990 when she was asked

to take over the helm of Brass of Peace, the scholarship program for talented

high school musicians. The 2007-2008 season marks her sixteenth season as music director and conductor of the critically acclaimed Eclipse Chamber Orchestra with whom she has conducted many world premiere performances including the ensemble's commissioned works; Late Victorians (1995), and Alcott Portraits (1999) by Composer-In-Residence,  Mark Adamo; and Morning Music (1996) and Concertino for Horn (2001) by Composer-In-Residence, Truman Harris.  Ms. Alimena also recently celebrated her ninth season as music director and conductor of the Friday Morning Music Club Orchestra with a performance of music from Wagner's Das Ring des Nibelungen as part of the Wagner Society/Smithsonian Institute

Epic Ring seminar. With Brass of Peace, a scholarship brass ensemble sponsored by Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, Ms. Alimena performs 9-10 free in-school and community outreach concerts per year. It is during these presentations that Ms. Alimena teaches high school age children the art of public speaking and community giving.  The members of Brass of Peace as well as Ms. Alimena, talk to the audience about their instruments and provide demonstrations for the younger children.

Guest appearances include the Holocaust Museum Series, the Peabody Institute

Orchestra and the University of Maryland Orchestra. Her conducting teachers

include Murry Sidlin, Gunther Schuller at the Sandpoint Music Festival and

Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra. Ms. Alimena was one of four participants in the Fellowship Conducting Program in the Aspen Music Festival 50th Anniversary Season where she had instruction with James Levine, Sian Edwards and David Zinman.  In her spare time Ms. Alimena enjoys hiking, gardening, cooking for her friends and enjoying Washington's many excellent restaurants.