An engaging communicator of exceptional warmth and energy, conductor Richard A. Haglund is Music Director for the Sangamon Valley Youth Symphony and Community Orchestra. Additionally he is Founder and Music Director of the Erato Chamber Orchestra and Assistant Conductor of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra.

Maestro Haglund has conducted professional ensembles around the globe. These include the Camerata Chamber Orchestra in Cluj, Romania, the St. Petersburg Hermitage Orchestra in Russia, and the Varna Philharmonic in Bulgaria. In 2007 he was guest conductor for a sold out audience on a program of American music with the Grabovo Chamber Orchestra also in Bulgaria. Haglund's diverse experience includes Pops Conductor for the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra's summer season, Assistant Conductor of the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Conductor of the Bard Community Chorus, and Founder and Conductor of the Sangamon Valley Community Orchestra in Springfield, Illinois.

Haglund received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Minnesota. He studied with Gustav Meier in Kiev, Ukraine where he conducted the National Symphony Orchestra and Radio Choir of the Ukraine, as well as in St. Petersburg, Russia at the Peter the Great Music Academy. In 2003, he completed a Masters of Fine Arts in Orchestral Conducting at Bard College in New York under the tutelage of Harold Farberman. Haglund also studied conducting with Leon Botstein, Paul Vermel, Larry Rachleff, and Murry Sidlin. In addition to conducting, he has studied composition individually with world-renowned composer Joan Tower.

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