The Mid-Atlantic Symphony performs throughout the Eastern Shore during their yearly performance series, with stops in Easton, Ocean Pines, Rehoboth Beach, and more. Their music director carries this mission beyond, working at a national level to educate and engage as an orchestral conductor. You’re listening to Off the Record with Stephen Philip Harvey, where we sit down and talk to a variety of musicians on today's music scene.
Today we're sitting down with Michael Repper. He's a conductor and educator known locally as the music director for the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra. Recently he's come into acclaim with one Grammy win in 2023 and two Grammy nominations in 2026. With both projects, Repper takes both a historical and contemporary take on orchestral music, revitalizing and highlighting diverse musics.
One of my passions is to try to go back and highlight music that I think should be far better known and far more recognized. But for many reasons is not. [It] is why I get very excited about recording these things and I've been blessed with those three Grammy nominations and one win. Um, and, maybe there's one for MSO in the future too.
Repper reps this rationale repeatedly in his repertoire, taking this approach to his collaborations for recording projects, live performances, educational engagements, and beyond.
Recording provides a fantastic avenue for trying to make the industry better, right? And to try to contribute something to the industry that hasn't been there before. Right? So going back and recording music that I think has been either forgotten or covered up or whatnot, right. We're adding something new that people can take in and appreciate, um, and hopefully get to know composers that they hadn't known before. And that's something that we appreciate very much at the Mid-Atlantic Symphony too, is that, you know, our programming is very diverse at the MSO and our audience appreciates getting to know music that they haven't heard before. As a conductor, I'm always asking myself, what is an experience that somebody can only get at our concerts?
This diverse programming comes back to the Eastern shore with a Mid-Atlantic Symphony orchestra. They'll be performing an astounding three full concertos for the Elizabeth Loker International Concerto Competition on Sunday, March 15. At the Chesapeake College Performing Arts Center in Wye Mills
We always look for ways to try to support the community, especially young people too, which is why we're really excited about the concerto competition. Each year it gets better and better and better, right? The level gets higher and higher and more competitive. So people who have been coming to the competition, I think they're gonna be blown away.
But we also try to provide mentorship to the finalists. And to the winner, you know, not just the winners, but all, all three of the finalists, you know, throughout their career. I'm still in touch with the previous winners from the last several years, and in fact, we invite them back to the Delmarva Peninsula to do chamber concerts or other sorts of things. We work to try to generate opportunities for them. I think this is the work that regional orchestras can really be doing actively to try to create the industry that they wanna see.
This was Off the Record, hosted by me, Stephen Philip Harvey, a Delmarva Public Media production. Thanks for listening to our interview with Michael Repper. For more information on the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, visit midatlanticsymphony.org. To hear more Off the rRcord interviews or to listen to other original segments like this, visit delmarvapublicmedia.org.
