Mitchell Sardou Klein

Mitchell Sardou Klein is Music Director of the Peninsula Symphony and the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, and a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the United States and abroad. He also regularly conducts the Inland Empire/Riverside Philharmonic and the Riverside Ballet. Maestro Klein is a winner of many prestigious awards, including the 2000 ASCAP Award for Programming of American Music on Foreign Tour, the 1993 Bravo Award for his contribution to the Bay Area's cultural life, the 2001 Jullie Billiart Award from the College of Notre Dame for Outstanding Community Service, and a 1996 award for the year's best television performance program in the Western States (for the one-hour PBS program about him and the Peninsula Symphony).

Recent seasons have included his return to Europe to guest conduct the New Polish Philharmonic and the Suddettic Philharmonic; concert tours of Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Japan, Australia and New Zealand with PYO; numerous return engagements to the San Jose Symphony, Ballet San Jose, and his return to the podium of the Santa Cruz Symphony. Other guest conducting appearances have included the Seattle Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Eastern Philharmonic, Flagstaff Festival Symphony, Amarillo Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic, South Bend Symphony, and many others. He also has extensive experience in ballet, having conducted performances for the Kansas City, Lone Star, Oakland, and Westport Ballets, as well as the Theater Ballet of San Francisco and les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

Maestro Klein led over a hundred concerts as Associate Conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic (where he was also Principal Pops Conductor and Principal Conductor of Starlight Theater, (the Philharmonic's summer home), and also served as Music Director of the Santa Cruz Symphony.

Mr. Klein was born in New York City, into a musical family that included members of the Claremont and Budapest String Quartets. He began cello studies at age four with his father, Irving Klein, founder of the Claremont Quartet. His mother, Elaine Hartong Klein, danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.
Since 1984, he has been Director of the Irving M. Klein International String Competition. Held in San Francisco each June, the Competition has become one of the most prominent in the world, featuring prizes totaling $20,000, attracting applicants from more than twenty nations annually, and launching numerous major international concert careers.

Cited for his keen judgment, tight orchestral discipline, feeling for tempo, and unerring control, Maestro Klein has conducted many significant world, American and West Coast premieres, including works by Bohuslav Martinu, Meyer Kupferman, Joan Tower, Hans Kox, George Barati, Benjamin Lees, Melissa Hui, Rodion Shchedrin, Alvin Brehm, and Margaret Garwood. He has appeared frequently on national and international broadcasts, including National Public Radio, the Voice of America, the WFMT Fine Arts Network, PBS Television, and KQED television. He lives in Oakland, California with his wife, violist Patricia Whaley, and daughter Elizabeth, age 18.