Catherine Sailer is Director of Choral Studies at the University of Denver, professor of conducting, and conductor of the Lamont Chorale. She is also Associate Conductor of the Colorado Ballet Orchestra, Music Director of the Littleton Symphony Orchestra and conductor of The Evans Choir. Sailer has collaborated as chorus master with conductors Branwell Tovey, Matthew Halls, Ed Spanjaard, Eric Whitacre, Victor Yampolsky, Stephen Alltop, David Amram, Tan Dun, David Fanshawe, Yannick Nezet- Segun, Robert Spano, Hans Graf, Jeff Tyzick, and Marin Alsop. Other conducting credits include Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Santa Fe Symphony, Central City Opera, Beijing Symphony, National Opera of China, Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Madrigal Vocale, Rhineland-Pfalz International Choir, Shanghai International Choral League, Lunds Akademiska Kor, Vox Anima London, Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, and Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. Sailer conducts festivals and masterclasses all around the world, including festivals in Carnegie Hall, England, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, and China and many honor choirs and workshops across the United States.
Honors and Awards include the Dale Warland Award for choral performance and Chorus America’s Robert Shaw Fellowship Award, first place in the ACDA Conducting Competition, and a special citation in the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music. Under her direction, Lamont Chorale won first place in the American Prize for choral performance and second place in the International Barenreiter Choral Competition.
Sailer received her Doctor of Music with honors in conducting from Northwestern University. Further were with Helmuth Rilling (Oregon Bach Festival), Leonard Slatkin (National Conducting Institute and National Symphony Orchestra), and as conducting fellow with the Dale Warland Singers, Kansas City Chorale, Chicago Symphony Chorus, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. For the American Choral Director’s Association, she served as state president, Collegiate Repertoire/Resource Chair, Conducting Competition Chair, and International Choral Exchange Program representative to China.
Catherine Sailer joined the Littleton Symphony Orchestra as Music Director and Conductor in August 2022.
Héctor Jardón is a conductor, saxophonist, and teacher from Toluca, Mexico. He is the Assistant Conductor of Littleton Symphony Orchestra, Conductor of the Denver Rock Orchestra, Saxophone Affiliate Faculty at Colorado Christian University, and the Fine Arts Director at Front Range Christian School. Héctor is the recipient of multiple awards and recognitions from University of Denver and Colorado Christian University. He aspires to become a full-time Music Director and Guest Conductor of orchestras across the United States and Latin America. He also enjoys cheering for the Nuggets and the Broncos.
Please join the Littleton Symphony Orchestra in welcoming our new concertmaster, Luyan Gao.
Dr. Luyan Gao is a dedicated violinist and educator with a passion for both performance and teaching. Originally from China, she earned her Doctor of Musical Arts and Masterof Music degrees in Violin Performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was awarded a graduate assistantship as a member of the graduate string quartet, studying under the guidance of the Pacifica Quartet. She also holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her primary violin teachers include Shisheng Zheng, Zhao Wei, Sherban Lupu, and Simin Ganatra.
Dr. Gao began her studies in the United States after being awarded the Concertmaster Fellowship from the University of Wyoming, where she completed a Performance Certificate. Over the years, she has participated in numerous competitions, earning recognition such as first prize in the Paul Rolland Memorial Competition and the T. Gordon Parks Collegiate Concerto Competition. One of her memorable solo performances was with the Arapahoe Philharmonic Orchestra, where she performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto.
As an orchestral musician, Dr. Gao currently serves as Concertmaster of the Littleton Symphony Orchestra in Colorado. She has also performed in the 1st violin sections of ensembles such as the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia da Camera, and Peoria Symphony Orchestra and has served as Assistant Concertmaster for the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra. In addition, she has had the privilege of working with renowned chamber ensembles such as the Emerson Quartet and the Guarneri Quartet, and her performances have been featured on Illinois Public Media’s classical broadcast, WILL-FM 90.9.
She feels honored to join the Littleton Symphony Orchestra and looks forward to learning and growing alongside its talented musicians.
Jurgen de Lemos, a native of Leipzig, Germany, has been a leader in the Denver music community since joining the Denver Symphony Orchestra in 1968 as Principal Cellist. He has been the Principal Cellist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra since its inception. A summa cum laude graduate in cello and composition from Hochschule fur Musik in Munich, Germany, and Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, France, he has studied with André Navarra, Pablo Casals, Leonard Rose, Gregor Piatigorsky and Maurice Eisenberg. He was the youngest member of the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein from 1964-68, and a winner of the Baglioni, Casals and Tchaikovsky international competitions. He also served as co-principal cellist under James Levine and Daniel Barenboim at the 1982 Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, and toured three continents with the Pablo Casals Trio. Mr. de Lemos was a Professor of cello and chamber music at the University of Colorado for 23 years. His conducting skills were refined under the tutelage of Adolph Mennerich in Munich, Jean Morel and Jorge Mester at Juilliard, and Walter Susskind (Aspen). He was founder and Music Director of the Arvada Center Orchestra from 1979-86, a past conductor of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, and conductor of the Boulder Youth Symphony for eight years. He has also conducted at Aspen and the Siena, Italy Contemporary Music Festival. Mr. de Lemos has also guest conducted for the Fort Collins Symphony, The Boulder Philharmonic, The Topengo Symphony and the Grand Junction Symphony. Mr. de Lemos has conducted the Littleton Symphony Orchestra since the 1990 season.
Mr. de Lemos retired from the LSO Music Director post at the end of 2021.
