Reading Symphony Orchestra Conductor and Music Director
Dr. Roland Vazquez,
the current Music Director of the Reading Symphony Orchestra, is the sixth conductor to lead the RSO. Born and raised in New York City, he showed an early interest in both music and art. He learned to play the violin, as a fifth grader, in a unique public school in the Bronx, in which selected students were formed into an orchestra. Thus, his first experiences in music took place in an orchestra, and orchestral music has ever since been at the center of his life.
He attended the City College of New York, where he received B.A. and M.A. degrees in music and musicology, respectively. Vazquez began a career in public school teaching in New York City, alternating between music teaching and elementary classroom work. During that period he founded and conducted his first orchestra, the Unicorn Ensemble. He decided to go further into music study, leaving New York for Cornell University, where he studied musicology and composition.
In 1980 Vazquez moved to the Boston area, joining the music faculty at MIT. At MIT, he instituted a series of orchestral readings, orchestral concerts and concert versions of operas, including The Magic Flute and Beethoven’s 9th and others.
In 1988 he spent six months doing music research in Oxford, England and upon returning, joined the music Department at Tufts University where he taught and conducted the Tufts University Orchestra.
Vazquez returned to teaching in the public elementary schools, taking a position as a Bilingual 2nd-grade classroom teacher in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He continues to work there to this day.
1997 marks the beginning of his tenure as conductor of the RSO. During that time, the orchestra has continued to grow in its reach and repertoire. Among the notable concerts of the past ten years have been performances of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony, Mahler’s 1st Symphony and piano concertos by Gershwin, Grieg, and Bartok.
Roland Vazquez lives in Andover with his wife, flutist and psychologist, Maggie Jackson. Their daughter, Elizabeth, is an accomplished singer.
Reading Symphony Orchestra Concertmistress
Jessica Amidon,
Jessica Amidon grew up in central Maine where she began playing violin at the age of eleven. She holds a bachelor of music degree from the Boston University School for the Arts where she studied with Roman Totenberg and Dana Mazurkevich. She is currently studying with Longy School of Music professor Clayton Hoener.
Jessica also teaches violin at the Solomon Schecter Day School in Newton, and maintains a private studio. She is also a member of the Lexington Symphony Orchestra.
We truly appreciate all the gifts that she brings to the orchestra.