ALLEN TINKHAM
Conductor, Orchestras

Director, Chicago Youth Symph (CYSO); Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Allen Tinkham was appointed Music Director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) in 2001. As Music Director, Tinkham oversees all artistic programming and faculty for a million-dollar institution whose ensembles include five orchestras.

 

He has led the CYSO regularly in performances at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Millenium Park, and Ravinia, as well as touring domestically to Carnegie Hall, and internationally to Prague, Budapest, Eisenstadt, Leipzig, Vienna, Warsaw, and Wroclaw.

During his tenure, the CYSO has won four ASCAP National Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music as well as the Illinois Council of Orchestras’ Programming and Youth Orchestra of the Year awards, and secured the institution’s first live broadcast performance from the studios of WFMT Chicago.

Prior to his appointment in Chicago, Tinkham served as Apprentice Conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, where he conducted annually on classical subscription (sharing concerts with Music Director James DePreist). Recent engagements include the orchestras of Amarillo (TX), Dubuque (IA), Racine (WI), Elmhurst (IL), and Kansas City (MO), as well as All-State Festival Orchestras in Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New York.

He is also a regular cover conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He was featured in the League of American Orchestra’s Conductor Preview and was one of only three Americans selected to participate in the 14th International Nicolai Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has also been a seminar faculty member for the League of American Orchestra’s Orchestra Leadership Academy.

Tinkham received his B.M. with Distinction from the Eastman School of Music and his M.M. from the University of Michigan. At the University of Michigan he was appointed Music Director of both the Campus Symphony and Philharmonia orchestras, and received the Helen and Clyde Wu Conducting Fellowship, the youngest conductor to receive these distinctions. He has also studied at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, the Conductors Retreat at Medomak (ME), the International Institute for Conductors (Kiev, Ukraine) and Scuola Leonardo da Vinci (Florence, Italy).