Our Conductor and Concertmaster
Maestro Jonathan Shames
Jonathan Shames is Music Director and Conductor of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, as well as Artistic Director of the University of Oklahoma Opera Theater and Director of Orchestral Studies at the OU School of Music. He conducts both OU Opera and the OU Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he is an advisor to the school’s contemporary music group, the New Century Ensemble. Shames was previously Associate Director of Orchestras at the University of Michigan (where he received a Grammy Award for his work on the recent recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and Experience), as well as Music Director and Conductor of the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Marrowstone Music Festival, and the Olympia (Washington) Symphony Orchestra.
Jonathan Shames’ work as musical assistant to Sarah Caldwell of the Opera Company of Boston (at age 19) led to his first conducting opportunities, when Caldwell invited him to lead performances of Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Since that time, he has frequently been associated with the company, leading several tours and Boston performances. Shames has conducted the Louisiana Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, Sewanee Festival and Pine Mountain Festival Symphony Orchestra.
As a pianist, since winning a finalist diploma in the 1982 Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition, Shames has performed in France, Finland, South Korea and the former Soviet Union, as well as across the United States. He has recorded with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, toured with the Radio and Television Orchestra of Belgrade, and appeared as soloist with the Seoul Sinfonietta, the Chattanooga Symphony, the Seattle and Tacoma Symphony Orchestras and the Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Seattle and Boston Pops orchestras, among others.
Together with his wife, pianist Stephanie Leon Shames, he founded and served as artistic director of The Boston Players, a chamber music ensemble that performed from 1992 to 1997.
As a chamber musician and conductor, Joanthan Shames has performed with Charles Neidich, Dale Clevenger, Glenn Dicterow, Karen Dreyfus, Martin Chalifour, Eric Shumsky, Michaela Martin, Karine Georgian, Eugene Drucker, and the Colorado, Lark, Moscow and Audubon String Quartets, among others.
Jonathan Shames’ teachers have included pianists Theodore Lettvin and Leon Fleisher, as well as Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink,Gustav Meier, Gerard Schwarz and Samuel Jones, He was a conducting fellow of the Tanglewood Institute in 1984. He has taught at Cornell University, SUNY-Binghamton, Rutgers University, the Chautauqua Institute, Oberlin Conservatory and Interlochken. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yale University and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan.
Concertmaster Rebecca Mothersbaugh
This is Becky’s thirteenth season as Concertmaster of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. A native of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Becky holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Violin Performance from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She played for three seasons in the Orquesta Filmonica de Caracas, Venezuela, from 1979-1981, then for four years as a first violinist in the Orquesta Sinfonica de Puerto Rico. While in San Juan, she freelanced extensively as a studio-recording musician. In 1985, she began a six-year as a first violinist with the Shreveport (Louisiana) Symphony. Prior to her appointment with the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, she spent three years as the Concertmaster of the Cheyenne Symphony. Becky performed in the Colorado Philharmonic Orchestra and played for seven summers with the Colorado Music Festival, one of the nation’s premier music festivals. She was principal second violin in the Bear Lake Music Festival, a tri-state event serving Wyoming, Idaho and Utah.
Becky has registered several units of teacher training with prominent instructors of the Suzuki Association of the Violins, teaching private and group lessons to students of all ages. She currently teaches violin to the pre-kindergarten class of Shepherd of the Hills Child Development Center and maintains a small private teaching studio. Last year, Becky served as a sectional coach for the Casper Youth Orchestra and this year, will be the Conductor Casper Youth Orchestra Sinfonia. Becky and her strings teacher husband, Jim, are the parents of two boys, Jamie and Blair.