Faculty
Photo credit: Layne Dixon
Henry Fogel, Dean Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of the Arts of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, served as Dean from 2009-2018. He continues as a member of the faculty. In addition, he continues to serve as a consultant for musical organizations. Recent clients include the Santa Fe Symphony, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic, the Lake Forest Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestras of Seattle, Chattanooga, Jacksonville, and Louisville, and the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra. He was an artistic consultant to the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil from 2008-2016, and has consulted for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Edinburg Festival. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou, China. He has facilitated music director searches for well over two dozen orchestras, and has overseen strategic planning processes as well. He also has consulted on issues including labor relations, financial management, and organizational behavior.
Mr. Fogel has had a long and varied career in music administration. From 2003-2008 he was President and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, and he spent the 2008-09 period remaining with the League as a field consultant to orchestras. During his seven years with the League, he visited over 190 orchestras in America. Under his leadership the League attained fiscal stability, fully paying off a $1.2 million accumulated deficit and operating in the black for each year of his Presidency.
From 1985-2003, Mr. Fogel was President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, leading the organization through a period of enormous change. Under his leadership the Orchestra’s endowment increased from $19 million to over $160 million, and he oversaw the $125 million renovation of Orchestra Hall. In addition to maintaining its artistic supremacy, the Chicago Symphony during Mr. Fogel’s term dramatically strengthened its community engagement and educational programs.
From 1981-1985, Mr. Fogel was Executive Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., and from 1978-1981 he was Orchestra Manager of the New York Philharmonic. From 1963-1978, he was Program Director and Vice-President of WONO, a full-time classical music commercial radio station in Syracuse, New York.
Henry Fogel has consistently served on non-profit boards. At various times he has chaired the Boards of the Opera Theatre of Syracuse, the Syracuse Ballet Theatre, the League of American Orchestras, and the Illinois Arts Alliance, and Cedille Chicago, and is Immediate Past President of the Chicago Opera Theatre. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Avery Fisher Artist Program.
Mr. Fogel has also been a reviewer of recordings for Fanfare magazine since 1986, and has contributed several entries to The Harvard Dictionary of Music. He has been a judge for conducting and other competitions in Chicago, New York, Montreal, Tokyo, Helsinki, and Sofia Bulgaria.
He has received honorary doctorate degrees from Roosevelt University, Northwestern University, the Curtis Institute, and Columbia College in Chicago. In 1999 Mr. Fogel received a Cultural Leadership Citation from Yale University for service to the cultural life of the nation. In June, 2009, he received the highest honor in the symphony orchestra field, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award. In 1990 was named by Business Week magazine as one of the five best managers of cultural organizations in the United States. In 2003 he was honored by the Illinois Arts Alliance as an Illinois Arts Legend. He has also received the Dushkin Award for his service to music by the Music Institute in Chicago. In 2017 he was honored by Chicago Opera Theater for his service to the arts. In 2019 he was present with the first Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award by the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. In 2019 in honor of his service to arts and his work on behalf of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra he was named Honorary Music Director of that ensemble. In 2019 he also received from Cedille Records the Martin Ginsburg Award for philanthropic service to the arts, presented to him by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Mr. Fogel has also served as a narrator with a number of orchestras. He has also produced a number of internationally syndicated radio programs for Chicago’s Fine Arts Station WFMT, including currently Collectors’ Corner, which is derived from his extensive personal collection of over 25,000 classical recordings. He was for many years a regular panelist on the Metropolitan Opera Broadcast Quiz. He has also written program notes for a number of recording companies and orchestras.
Mr. Fogel lives in River Forest, Illinois with his wife Frances. They have two children, Karl and Holly, and five grandchildren. In addition to music, he also has a passion for cooking Chinese food, and he studied over three years with Virginia Lee, who wrote the New York Times Chinese Cookbook.
Photo credit: Aaron Yoshino/HONOLULU Magazine
Conductor John Devlin is an energetic force in the classical music world. He is an innovator of concert design, an ardent champion of American music, and a proponent of cross-genre collaborations. The newly appointed Music Director of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, Devlin is only the ninth conductor in its 90-year history to hold that title and, at 34, is one of the nation’s youngest music directors to lead a professional symphony orchestra.
Devlin’s artistry and versatility make him a sought-after guest conductor with major orchestras across the nation. His recent engagements include performances with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony, the Omaha Symphony, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and the American Repertory Ballet. Of his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra and violin soloist Joshua Bell, Anne Midgette of The Washington Post wrote that Devlin “led the evening with flair… and was visibly in his element.”
Devlin spent three seasons from 2015-2018 apprenticing with some of the world’s best conductors, soloists, and orchestras while based in Washington, D.C. During that time, he was the Cover Conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra, where he served as assistant to world-renowned Music Directors Christoph Eschenbach and Gianandrea Noseda, accompanying the orchestra on its historic 2018 tour of Russia. He served concurrently as the Assistant Conductor of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey, working alongside Music Director Rossen Milanov.
A leader in designing concerts that frame orchestral music in inventive ways, Devlin has generated such forward-looking concepts as Gourmet Symphony, Go-Go Symphony, Seamless Symphony, Interactive Symphony, and the New Retro Project. These collaborations have paired artists such as Joshua Bell with gourmet chefs, and legendary musicians like Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, and Larry Graham with symphony orchestras for the first time. Each reflects Devlin’s mission of making the symphonic art form attainable and engaging for all audiences. The Washington Post hailed these projects as “refreshingly unfamiliar” events that deliver “a new audience for classical music” and have brought “the sold-out house to its feet, cheering.”
Committed to serving the wider arts community beyond the podium, Devlin has been a member of the Conductors Guild’s Board of Directors and was a featured speaker at the organization’s 2014 annual conference, discussing the future of orchestras with the Executive Directors of the National and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras. He also delivered the keynote TED talk on “Innovation in Crowded Marketplaces” at a TEDx symposium in 2017.
Michael Avagliano has created a multifaceted career as conductor, performer, and educator. He serves as music director of the Central Jersey Symphony and the Summit Symphony, and is on the faculty of Drew University as director of the University Orchestra and violin professor. Mr. Avagliano is increasingly in demand as a guest conductor in the New York area and beyond. Recent and upcoming appearances include the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, Light Opera of New Jersey, the Newburgh Symphony, the University of Oregon Symphony, the YPHIL International Youth Philharmonic, the Scuola Popolare di Testaccio in Rome, the Plainfield Symphony, and the Northern Dutchess Symphony.
Dedicated to the development of young conductors, Mr. Avagliano has worked with Markand Thakar as associate faculty for the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra Conducting Seminars. He has also founded the International Conducting Masterclass at Stony Point, and works to help aspiring conductors to find opportunities for performance and instruction.