Student orchestras are my day job

I’m Music Director of the Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra and Director of Orchestras at Boyertown Area Senior High School, a NAMM Best Community for Music Education. I also serve on the executive board of PMEA District 10.

A festival brings together students from different schools, seats them next to strangers, and gives them a few rehearsals to become one orchestra. My rehearsals move fast and stay high-energy, because that schedule needs it.

Christopher Cinquini conducting a student orchestra in concert

Opera and touring

I was Principal Conductor of Berks Opera Company, where our 2015 production of Gounod’s Faust was named the Reading Eagle’s Newsmaker of the Year. I’ve led performance tours to the Czech Republic, Austria, Spain and England, and to New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.

I hold a Master of Music Performance in Orchestral Conducting from West Chester University and a Bachelor of Music Education from Penn State. The orchestral and opera works I’ve conducted and performed are on my repertoire page.

What to send me

  • the festival, its dates and the rehearsal schedule
  • the ensemble: string orchestra or full orchestra, grade levels, and roughly how many students
  • the repertoire, if it’s already chosen
  • where the concert will be

Running a musical this year too? Here’s how I handle click tracks for school musicals.