Join us for the 2009-10 Concert Season
with Music Director, Robert Mirakian

At home on both the orchestra stage and in the opera pit, Robert Mirakian is a passionate advocate for music. Now in his third season as Music Director of the Richmond Philharmonic in Richmond, Virginia, Robert's work to continue the orchestra's long history of artistic excellence and community involvement has resulted in both larger audiences and the awarding of two National Endowment for the Arts project grants to the orchestra. His work in Richmond builds upon his experience as Assistant Conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra, where he led the orchestra's family and chamber orchestra concerts, organized outreach performances, and assisted conductors Stefan Sanderling, Joann Faletta, Andrew Litton, and Carl Topilow in more than twenty performances. Robert has also served as General Manager and Conductor of the Janiec Opera Company at North Carolina's Brevard Music Center and Director of Orchestral Studies at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. He is currently Interim Director of the University of Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

Robert holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Illinois, where he studied with Donald Schleicher, and is completing a doctorate at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music with David Effron. A cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, Robert there distinguished himself as a Senior Fellow and Presidential Scholar while serving as Music Director of the Dartmouth Chamber Orchestra and establishing the school's first summer orchestra.

Robert has appeared as a guest conductor with the Quad Cities Symphony, the Jacobs School of Music Concert Orchestra, the University of Illinois Symphony, Philharmonia, Illini String, and Chamber Orchestras, the University of Illinois New Music Ensemble, and the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra. He lives in Toledo, Ohio, with his wife Ashley.