Alan Louis Futterman

Alan Futterman is a multifaceted conductor whose contributions to professional orchestras, community orchestras and music education shine across decades. He currently serves as Music Director & Conductor of the Bremerton WestSound Symphony and the Peninsula Ballet Orchestra. Mr. Futterman has previously held positions including Music Director of the Dover Symphony Orchestra, the Academy Chamber Orchestra, Principal Conductor for the Weierstrass Society Concerts of Contemporary Music in New York, Director of the Zaccho Ballet Orchestra in Belgium, and Conductor in Residence for Jeunesse Musicale of Europe. He also spent ten years on the music faculty at Central Washington University and taught at the Manhattan School of Music, guiding numerous students who went on to attend elite institutions like Harvard, Yale, Juilliard, Curtis, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Peabody Conservatory. A graduate of the master’s program at the Juilliard School with further doctoral studies in musicology and Baroque performance, Futterman studied under luminaries such as Sir Georg Solti and Leonard Bernstein via master classes and served as Assistant Conductor to Maestro Vladimir Kin of St. Petersburg. He spent one year pursuing Jazz studies and composition at the Berklee School of Music with Charles Mariano. As an orchestral musician, Futterman played with ensembles including the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of New England, New Jersey State Opera, Philharmonia Virtuosi, and the Seattle Symphony under conductors Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Aaron Copland, Edo de Waart, James Conlon, George Manahan, Julius Rudel, Jorge Mester, Sixten Ehrling, Rainer Miedel and Gerard Schwarz. Maestro Futterman is a multi-instrumentalist, having recorded on piano, organ, bassoon, recorders, lute, mandolin, cavaquinho, and roženica Beginning in 1994, Mr. Futterman devoted more of his time to the education of young musicians as Music Director of the Bellevue Youth Symphony, then as founder and Music Director of the Academy Chamber Orchestra, a training ensemble for advanced instrumentalists. Graduates of the Academy Chamber Orchestra are now members of the New York Philharmonic, The Boston Symphony, The National Symphony, The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, etc. Futterman is also an accomplished composer, known for works such as Farrago and Fugue (1997), World Beat Dance Suites (2000 and 2002), Romanian Medley (2005), Fiesta Mexicana (2005), Japanese Vignettes (2006), and Navidad Nuestra (2008). His compositions, including the Romanian Medley, have evoked enthusiastic audience reactions—one review noted that a performance “elicited cheering from the audience – a gesture usually reserved for sports, not symphony.” For nearly ten years Mr. Futterman had a parallel career in foreign languages and cultures. Employed by the American Cultural Exchange, he served as a cultural liaison for visits from foreign governments and universities. This, in turn, led to three years of work with the television series “Northern Exposure” as a technical advisor, scriptwriter and multiple language coach. Since taking on the music directorship of the Bremerton Symphony (now WestSound) in 2009, Futterman has brought both leadership and vitality to the ensemble. His debut as interim conductor in early 2009 resulted in standing ovations for each of the three concerts he led. Beyond performance, he has enriched the musical landscape through guest conducting with ensembles such as the Seattle Philharmonic, Yakima Symphony, and Bainbridge Symphony. In short, Alan Futterman’s career illustrates educational influence, artistic leadership, and compositional creativity. His 16-year tenure with the Bremerton WestSound Symphony, 20-year tenure with the Academy Chamber Orchestra, and more than 30-year tenure with the Peninsula Ballet Theater demonstrate a deep connection to his regional communities and a loyalty to the musical organizations he serves.