Maestro Tim Semanik
The 2019-20 season marks Timothy Semanik’s second season as music director for the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his position with the Northwest Symphony, Maestro Semanik is currently the music director of the Bradley Symphony Orchestra, the Salt Creek Chamber Orchestra, and recently completed his twelfth season with the Savoyaires of Evanston, IL. He was previously music director for the Carleton College Orchestra, the University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Northern Illinois University Philharmonic, and the Central Illinois Youth Symphony. Mr. Semanik has served as guest conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Youth Symphony, the Windsor Symphony, the Elmhurst Symphony, the Pacific Symphony Institute and Youth Orchestra, and the orchestras at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. He has conducted numerous choral ensembles including the Pacific Chorale, the Bradley Community Chorus, the California State University Singers and Men’s Chorus and has held music director positions for numerous church music programs, including his current position at the First United Methodist Church of La Grange. As a committed advocate of music education, Dr. Semanik has served as guest conductor, adjudicator, and clinician for numerous high school orchestras and festivals.
Mr. Semanik’s operatic credits included productions with Winter Operations St. Louis, Festival Opera, Light Opera Works, Great Lakes Lyric Opera, Ann Arbor Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, Comic Opera Guild, Ann Arbor Civic Theater, Opera in the Ozarks, Bradley University, Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and California State University, Fullerton. He currently serves as principal guest conductor for MIOpera.
Mr. Semanik holds a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in orchestral conducting form the University of Michigan, studying with Victor Yampolsky and Kenneth Kiesler, respectively. He was a member of the conducting class at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he had the opportunity to work with Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Robert Spano, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, and Michael Morgan and was a recipient of the Bruno Walter Scholarship at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, where he studied with Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier.