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Kermit Poling is Associate Conductor of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of both the South Arkansas Symphony and the Shreveport Metropolitan Ballet. He has performed extensively throughout the United States and abroad, including concerts in Mexico, England, Ireland, France, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. His many guest conducting appearances have included the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México, the Riverside (NJ) Symphonia, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and Moscow Ballet, Filharmonia Veneta, Ballet South, Opera Lewanee!, the Adrian Symphony, the Mayormente Mozart Festival of Puerto Rico, and the Inter-American Festival of Contemporary Music. A virtuoso violinist, he is in his 20th season as concertmaster of the SSO, having also performed many solo works with the orchestra. He has previously served as conductor for the Boston Festival Pops Orchestra, the Boston Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, the Brookline (MA) Symphony, the Centenary College Chamber Orchestra, the Ruston Symphony and the Ark-La-Tex Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Also a composer and arranger, Poling's ballet Snow White, was commissioned and premiered by the Shreveport Metropolitan Ballet in the spring of 2003 and was repeated in 2004 to rave reviews. He also arranged and conducted a new orchestral show with the Cox Family of Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou fame for a special SSO fundraising event that same season. He has similarly created orchestral arrangements for a wide range of artists, including Grammy winning guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd and blues singer Irma Thomas. His work, Candles and Dreidels has been performed by symphonies throughout the country. He has just been awarded a new commission for a ballet based on the Wizard of Oz to premiere in the spring of 2006. Poling received the Outstanding Artist in Music Fellowship in 2000 from the State of Louisiana and the Music Fellowship from the Shreveport Regional Arts Council in 1996. He was awarded a conducting scholarship to the Tanglewood Music Center, studying with Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Gustav Meier and Seiji Ozawa, and received scholarships from the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Having many close ties to theater, he has conducted nearly 100 different theatrical productions for the Majorie Lyons Playhouse of Centenary College, Shreveport Opera, the Greenbriar Theater of Ohio and other theaters throughout the U.S, with repertoire ranging from 1776 to Sweeney Todd. He has received numerous commissions to create new scores for theatrical works, including Elektra, As Bees in Honey Drown, and The Bat. In 1998 he was chosen by Emmy award winning artist William Joyce to compose the music for his stage adaptation of The Leafmen and the Brave Good Bugs. This project was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the CD of this music was released the following year.
Maestro Poling has been a featured conductor on NPR's Performance Today, the Arkansas Educational Television Network, the Red River Radio Network, WGBH Boston and has appeared as violinist on Louisiana Public Television and PBS in addition to numerous television and radio stations throughout the country. Poling also has produced a number of recordings, including Reflections by the Shreveport Symphony in 1999, and Alive With the Spirit by the Faithlink singers in 2003, on which he also appears as conductor. During the current season, Maestro Poling will make his debut in China conducting the Shenzhen Symphony and will be in Beijing in August as one of three international judges for China's National Young Artists Competition.