Meet the Maestri
January 22, 2024
We are thrilled to welcome two powerhouse conductors to the podium. Jacob Sustaita will be our conductor for La Boheme this January. LOOC’s Principal Conductor, Doris Lang Kosloff will be joining tht performance as the piano orchestra before taking up the baton for our highly anticipated production of Fete Galante this March!
JACOB SUSTAITA
Jacob Sustaita serves as the assistant conductor for Pacific Symphony, a position he has held since the fall of 2020. Sustaita also serves as music director and conductor for Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra (PSYO), the premier training orchestra of Orange County, recognized as one of the most outstanding youth orchestras in the country.
Sustaita is also the newly appointed orchestra director for the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA) Symphony Orchestra. In the fall of 2021 and 2022, he served as acting director of Orchestras at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). From 2015 to 2020, he led the Sam Houston State University Symphony, Chamber, Ballet and Opera Orchestras as director of Orchestral Studies. In 2016, he and the Symphony Orchestra performed the American premiere of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 1 (original Linz version) with high praise from the American and European Bruckner Societies.
Sustaita is a frequent guest conductor and clinician across the country. In 2015, he was selected by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Institute to serve as assistant conductor for Charles Dutoit and the National Youth Orchestra of America (NYO). He regularly conducted and coached the orchestra during its New York residency and on their seven-city tour of China and Hong Kong.
A native of Texas, Sustaita completed his Doctorate and Bachelor of Music degrees at the University of Houston, where he served as assistant conductor for the Moores Opera Center for three seasons. He also earned a Master of Music degree from both Penn State University and Rice University.
His honors include: Schissler Conducting Fellowship, Rice University Prize and Provost Fellowship, and American Prize semi-finalist and finalist. His teachers and mentors include Carl St.Clair, Charles Dutoit, Franz Krager, Brett Mitchell, Gerardo Edelstein and Paavo Järvi.
DORIS LANG KOSLOFF
Doris Lang Kosloff, a native of Brooklyn, New York, holds many prominent positions in the field of opera. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Queens College (The Aaron Copland School of Music) of the City University of New York and holds a Master of Music degree from the Boston University School of Fine and Applied Arts, from which she graduated first in her class.
Kosloff is the Artistic Director and Conductor of Opera Connecticut, the state’s premier professional opera company. She is the Director of Vocal Studies at The Hartt School, University of Hartford, as well as the Director of the Hartt Opera Theater, for which she is also the Music Director and Conductor.
In 2009, Ms. Kosloff created the highly acclaimed American Opera Idol international competition which continues to draw new audiences to opera. That same year she was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of Miami Lyric Opera. Kosloff’s active guest conducting career includes guest appearances with the Syracuse Opera, Orlando Opera, Southern Ballet Theatre, Opera Columbus, Treasure Coast Opera, and Miami Lyric Opera. Ms. Kosloff is the conductor of contemporary chamber orchestra works on many discs; She also recorded a symphonic disk with the Czech Radio Philharmonic. She was Music Director and Conductor for the world premiere of The Village (an opera based on factual events of the Holocaust) which premiered in March of 1995 in New York. With Lyric Opera OC she has lead our musicians in inovative performances of Magic Flute, Carmen, Romeo et Juliette, and countless concerts. In March 0f 2024, she will conduct the West Coast and orchestrat premiere of Ethel Smyth’s Fete Galante for the opera’s centennial celebration.
