Long tenured music directors—a list

Dear Colleagues,

Earlier this month I asked to learn of other long-tenured music directors and received a wonderful response. Thank you to everyone who wrote, and for so many kind and gracious comments about my imminent retirement from The Chicago Bar Association Symphony, and bravo to the individuals listed below. This is hardly an exhaustive list, and it is not curated, but I assume all the information is accurate, or close. Some of these individuals are still in their positions, or emeritus but still conducting on occasion. I made the listing to start from 34 years (instead of 35), simply as an arbitrary cutoff, because I wanted to be sure Glenn Block was listed!

Any others I missed—choral conductors, band conductors, too—music directors in the same conducting position for 34 years or more, living or not, please let me know:

All best,
David

David Katz, founding music director
The Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra

LONG-TENURED MUSIC DIRECTORS

54 years—Takashi Asahina—Osaka Philharmonic
51 years—Joseph Primavera—Philadelphia Youth Orchestra
50 years—Zubin Mehta—Israel Philharmonic
50 years —Willem Mengelberg—Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
50 years—James Sinclair—Orchestra New England
46 years—Michael Pratt—Princeton University Orchestra
44 years—Jacob Avshalomov—Portland Youth Philharmonic
44 years—Eugene Ormandy—Philadelphia Orchestra
42 years—Carl Topilow—National Repertory Orchestra
42 years—Gerhardt Zimmerman—Canton Symphony Orchestra
41 years—Steven Amundson—St Olaf Orchestra
40 years—Brooke Creswell—Yakima Symphony Orchestra
40 years—Martin Fischer—Brown University Symphony
39 years—Victor Yampolsky—Northwestern University Symphony
38 years—David Katz—Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra
38 years—Jerome Laszloffy—New Britain Symphony Orchestra
38 years—Barbara Schubert—Dupage Symphony Orchestra
37 years—Frederick Stock—Chicago Symphony Orchestra
37 years—Carl Topilow—Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra
37 years—George Zack—Lexington Philharmonic
36 years—Nathan Gottschalk—Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra
35 years—Donald Appert—Clark College Orchestra
35 years—David Nagy—Salisbury Symphony
35 years—Nancy Menk—South Bend Chamber Singers
34 years—Glenn Block—Illinois State University Orchestra