Alan is the Music Director of the Bremerton WestSound Symphony and the Academy Chamber Orchestra. He served on the Music Faculty of Central Washington University for 10 years and as Music Director of the Dover Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor for the Weierstrass Society Concerts of Contemporary Music (New York, N.Y.), Music Director of the Zaccho Ballet Orchestra (Belgium), and Conductor in Residence for Jeunesse Musicale of Europe.

 

Mr. Futterman holds a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School of Music with two years of Doctoral studies in Musicology and Baroque Performance Practice. As a Doctoral candidate, he served as Assistant Conductor to Maestro Vladimir Kin of St. Petersburg and participated in master classes with Sir George Solti and Leonard Bernstein.

 

In the 1990’s, Mr. Futterman devoted more of his time to the education and training of young musicians as Music Director of the Bellevue Youth Symphony, then as founder and Music Director of the Academy Chamber Orchestra, a training ensemble for advanced instrumentalists. In the 1980’s he served on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music and his students have gone on to attend Harvard, Yale, the Curtis Institute, the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Peabody Conservatory.

 

As an orchestral musician, Mr. Futterman performed with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of New England, the New Jersey State Opera, and the Seattle Symphony under various Music Directors including; Leonard Bernstein, Sir Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Aaron Copland, and Gerard Schwarz.

 

For nearly ten years Mr. Futterman had a parallel career in foreign languages and cultures. Employed by the American Cultural Exchange, he served as a cultural liaison for visits from foreign governments and universities and trained foreign language interpreters. This, in turn, led to three years of work with the television series “Northern Exposure” as a technical advisor, scriptwriter and multiple language coach.

 

Mr. Futterman has consistently received standing ovations as a composer when touring with orchestra and conducting his own World Beat Dance Suites. His first appearance with the Bainbridge Symphony elicited the following from the Bainbridge Island Review, “Last season’s performance of Futterman’s Romanian Medley, was received so graciously that it even elicited cheering from the audience – a gesture usually reserved for sports, not symphony.” His Fiesta Mexicana (2005) has been embraced by the Hispanic communities of Washington and performed many times.

 

His orchestral works include Farrago and Fugue (1997), Double Trouble, a setting of the Witches’ Scene from Macbeth (1999), the World Beat Dance Suite #1 (2000), World Beat Dance Suite #2 (2002), Japanese Vignettes (2006), and Navidad Nuestra (2008).