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Chris David Westover currently serves as the music director of the OU Civic Orchestra at the University of Oklahoma, where he teaches undergraduate conducting and is the assistant to the conductor of the OU Symphony and OU Opera Theater. Furthermore, he is currently pursuing the Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting at OU where he studies with Jonathan Shames. Westover is also the artistic director and a Founder of Sound and Silence, a professional, flexible and innovative chamber orchestra in Dallas, Texas. Previously he served as the assistant conductor of the Meadows Wind Ensemble (2008-2010) at the Meadows School of the Arts of Southern Methodist University, where he taught both undergraduate and graduate conducting courses. In May 2010 he received a Master of Music degree in instrumental conducting from the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. In addition, he holds a Bachelor of Arts in music from Western Kentucky University.
Most recently, he conducted the Dallas premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Darwin’s Meditation for the People of Lincoln during the inaugural season of the renowned Winspear Opera House. The Dallas Morning News said the performance “often shift[ed] between majesty and melancholy, [and it]was as powerful an emotional exploration as a historical one.” Westover’s appearances with the Meadows Wind Ensemble include recent performances of Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story”, Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder, Hindemith’s Konzertmusik, op. 41 and Berlioz’s Grande Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale. In addition, he frequently conducted the Wind Ensemble at Western Kentucky University, and in March 2008, he gave the southeastern premiere of David Maslanka’s Concerto No. 2 for piano, winds and percussion.
Westover’s performances have garnered the acclaim of composers and performers alike, some of which include Daniel Bernard Roumain, Dan Lazerescou, David Sterrett and Michael Kallstrom. He has frequently collaborated with composers through commissions and premieres and in 2007, he led the student wing of the National Band Association to commission a chamber opera by Michael Kallstrom. Westover conducting teachers include John Carmichael, Jack Delaney, Kenneth Kiesler, Jonathan Shames and Eric Smedley. In addition, he has participated in master classes with Donald Hunsberger, James Keene, Robert Rumbelow and Mark Davis Scatterday.