Senior Symphony

Since 1987, Margery Deutsch has been Music Director of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Senior Symphony and has led them on numerous international tours to critical acclaim. Under her leadership and direction, the Senior Symphony has performed in Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, China, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Canada (British Columbia and Quebec) and Scotland, where the orchestra performed as part of the Festival of British Youth Orchestras and the Edinburgh Festival. In the summer of 2015, she led them on a concert tour to Vienna and Budapest where they performed at MuTh Concert Hall, the Musikverein’s Golden Hall, Béla Bartók National Concert Hall and Gödöllő Palace. In 2012, she led the Senior Symphony on a ten-day tour of Vienna and Prague where they were chosen to perform on the Gala Winners’ Concert as part of the 2012 Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival. In 2000, the Senior Symphony was chosen as one of only five U.S. youth orchestras to participate in the National Youth Orchestra Festival in Sarasota, Florida. Deutsch has conducted the orchestra in performances at Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, the Wisconsin Music Educators Conference (North Central Division) and the Mid-West International Band and Orchestra Clinic.

Named Professor Emeritus in 2012, Ms. Deutsch was Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1984-2012. She serves as the Music Director of UWM’s University Community Orchestra, an ensemble of over 120 musicians ranging in age from 12 to 100. The orchestra is comprised of college, high school, and middle school students and community members. Ms. Deutsch is actively involved with high school-age musicians throughout the country and is in frequent demand as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator. She has served four terms on the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestra’s Youth Orchestra Division.

Prior to coming to Milwaukee, Ms. Deutsch served as Music Director of the Shreveport (LA) Symphony where she conducted classical, chamber orchestra, pops and children’s concerts, as well as operas. Versed in both orchestral and choral repertoire, she was Music Director of the Long Island Singers Society and, in Milwaukee, has guest conducted The Master Singers, Bel Canto Chorus, Milwaukee Choristers, Lawrence University Choir, Milwaukee Children’s Choir and the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus.

Deutsch has been a frequent guest conductor for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s Youth, Children’s and Family concert series. In addition, she has worked with the Sewanee Music Festival (TN), Sheboygan Symphony, Aurora University’s Music by the Lake Opera Theater, Women’s Philharmonic (CA), Plymouth (MI) Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Charleston (SC) Symphony, Nebraska Sinfonia, Monroe (LA) Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, and the all-state orchestras of Massachusetts, Kansas, Missouri, Washington, Minnesota, Montana, Delaware, Maine and most recently, New York, as well as numerous district festivals throughout the country.

The recipient of numerous honors and awards, Ms. Deutsch received the 2001 Milwaukee Civic Music Association Award for Excellence in Contributions to Music and the 1990 UWM Undergraduate Teaching Award. She has been awarded conducting fellowships and scholarships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Academia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and the Nebraska-based “Festival of a Thousand Oaks.” She was also invited to participate in the conducting seminar at Tanglewood where she took master classes with Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa and Colin Davis. Her other teachers include Thomas Briccetti, Franco Ferrarra, Bruno Bartoletti, Piero Bellugi, Sergiu Commisiona and Dennis Russell Davies; she has also studied flute with Samuel Baron and voice with Jan DeGaetani. A native New Yorker and Regents Scholar, she holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting, a Master of Arts degree in Musicology, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Flute and Vocal Performance.

Originally from Whitestone, NY, Yuka Kadota is a graduate of Indiana University with a Bachelor of Music and Performer Diploma in Violin Performance and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. Her major teachers were Henryk Kowalski and Franco Gulli. She completed graduate studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden.

Ms. Kadota began her professional orchestral career at the age of 24 with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and held the title of associate concertmaster for six seasons. She has been a featured soloist with that orchestra and during her tenure was also the second violinist of the Freimann Quartet, the Quartet in Residence of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. Since 2004, Ms. Kadota has been on faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, NC.

Ms. Kadota has given performances at the White House, the Vatican, and the UN General Assembly for such dignitaries as First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Pope John Paul II, and Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Gali. In addition to performing as a soloist with several orchestras in the New York area, she has been broadcast in Italy on the Vatican Radio and Chicago on WFMT, and she has appeared on a televised broadcast of the BBC Proms with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Since 2007, Ms. Kadota has performed regularly as an extra violinist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and joined them for the entire 2011-12 season. She has toured with the CSO throughout the United States and abroad, most recently touring Russia and Italy with Music Director Riccardo Muti. Through the CSO, she has had the privilege of working with other esteemed conductors, including Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Ms. Kadota has been a member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra since the 2013-14 season and has represented the MSO as a member of the Emmy Award-winning All-Star Orchestra, an orchestra comprised of musicians from various top-tier American orchestras.