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Directors
Matthew Savery
Music Director and Conductor
Now in his eighteenth season as Music Director of the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Choir and fourth season as Music Director of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, MATTHEW SAVERY enjoys a continuously expanding reputation for his multi-faceted career as an electrifying performer, dedicated orchestra builder and charismatic teacher.
In addition to his duties with the Bozeman Symphony, where his innovative subscription, family and children’s programming earns consistent praise - and sold-out houses, Matthew Savery regularly offers the state’s schools a “Conductor in Residency” program that, for the past several seasons has accounted for dozens of hours per school year. He is much in demand as both a competition adjudicator and an in-school clinician, and has guest conducted throughout the region: The Nutcracker with the Montana Ballet; Annie, Damn Yankees and Guys and Dolls with Montana Theatreworks. During his years with the orchestra, Mr. Savery has also presided over a ten-fold rate of financial growth, while regularly attracting over 4.3% of Bozeman’s population to its concerts..
Matthew Savery’s current season includes his debut with the East Texas Symphony Orchestra and his 17th performance with the Greater Bridgeport Symphony.
A native of Western Massachusetts, just “down the road” from the famed Tanglewood Music Festival, Matthew Savery graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music and received his Master of Music Degree from the University of Michigan, where he was the recipient of a Teaching Assistantship to the prestigious studio of Gustav Meier and to which he returned in 2001 and 2006 as a Visiting Guest Lecturer. In addition to Mr. Meier, his principal teachers have been Pascal Verrot and Frank Battisti.
While at the University of Michigan, Matthew Savery was the founding Music Director of the University Campus Chamber Orchestra. Subsequently, he served as Music Director of the Comic Opera Guild of Ann Arbor, Massachusetts’ Stockbridge Sinfonia and the Tecumseh Orchestra in Michigan. He has also led performances with the Boise, Dayton, Fort Wayne, Long Island and Naples philharmonics, El Paso, Greater Bridgeport (16 performances), Greater Lansing, Lake St. Clair, Quad City, Saginaw Bay, Sioux City, Springfield (MA, MO and OH), South Dakota and Virginia symphony orchestras, Missouri Chamber Orchestra, Cape May Music Festival, Canada’s Victoria Symphony, and Turkey’s Presidential Symphony Orchestra. In June, 2001 he made a notable debut with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, opening its acclaimed summer series at Conner Prairie. Mr. Savery was a member of the first class of the International Institute for Conductors in Kiev, Ukraine, and has led that country’s National Symphony Orchestra in public performance.
Matthew Savery is a recipient of the Eugene and Sadie Power Award for the Performing Arts. In October 1998, he and the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra were the subjects of a special feature on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
Jon Harney
Choir Conductor
Jon Harney is an associate professor of music at MSU-Bozeman. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in music education from Luther College, Decorah, Iowa where he studied under Weston Noble and Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in vocal performance from the University of Minnesota where he studied with Clifton Ware. As a tenor soloist, he has sung more than twenty-five principal and supporting roles in opera, operetta, and major works with orchestra and chorus. While active with the University of Minnesota opera theater, he appeared as The Sailor in Dido and Aeneas, Fenton in Falstaff, Nemorino in The Elixir of Love, Ferrando in Cosí Fan tutte and Junki in the US premier of Rautavaara’s Aleksis Kivi. Other roles in the midwest included Dr. Caius in Falstaff and Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Pine Mountain Music Festival, Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor with the Dorian Opera Theatre and Frederick in a touring production of The Pirates of Penzance with the Madison-based Opera for the Young. He earned an honorable mention award in the 1998 Minnesota District Metropolitan Opera Auditions. Performances in Montana have included the roles of Edmondo in Manon Lescaut and Remendado in Carmen with Intermountain Opera Bozeman as well as Bach’s Magnificat and Handel’s Messiah with the Bozeman Symphony.
Harney has served as chorus master for the Intermountain Opera since 2002, preparing the choruses for productions of L’elisir d’amore, Aida, Lucia di Lammermoor, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, The Pirates of Penzance, Manon Lescaut, The Magic Flute, Carmen, La Boheme, The Ballad of Baby Doe, Il Trovatore and Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Prior to coming to MSU-Bozeman, Harney was on the voice faculty of Macalester College and directed high school choirs in the North St. Paul school district. In 2001, Dr. Harney joined the MSU-Bozeman music faculty where he teaches studio voice lessons, opera scenes class and directs the University Chorus. In 2002, he was selected as one of twelve voice teachers nationwide to participate in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern Program working under master teacher Elaine Bonazzi. He served as president of the Montana Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing from 2007-2009. In summer 2008, Harney was selected to sing in the Westminster Choir College Chamber Choir in residence in Florence, Italy, singing under the direction of Joe Miller and in July 2010 sang under the direction of Dale Warland as part of the Festival Chorale at the Minnesota Beethoven Festival.