Conservatory Orchestra

The Conservatory Orchestra is led by Robert Olson and performs several concerts each year in the Conservatory’s White Recital Hall and also at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Helzberg Hall.

Robert Olson earned degrees from Northern Illinois, Michigan State, and the University of Washington and had further study at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik as a recipient of the coveted Fulbright Scholarship. He served on the faculties of Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University of Colorado before joining the UMKC faculty in 1990.

In addition to the two orchestras he conducts at UMKC, he is also the music director and conductor for the Longmont Symphony (Colorado) and was founder and artistic director of the renowned Colorado MahlerFest, having just retired in May 2015 after 28 years; the festival has achieved international praise through its critically acclaimed CDs and performances. In September 2005, Olson shared the stage with the New York Philharmonic as recipient of the coveted Mahler Gold Medal, a rarely bestowed honor presented by the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna to the world’s most prestigious artists and orchestras for their outstanding contributions to the music of Mahler.

For fourteen years Olson was conductor for the Kansas City Ballet, conducting more than 600 performances for the company with the Kansas City and St. Louis Symphonies.