The 2009–2010 season marks GERRY DOAN’s twenty-eighth season
as CCO’s conductor and musical director. Under Dr. Doan's leadership,
the CCO has undergone tremendous growth in both membership and musicality, tackling works that were once thought to be "too difficult"
for a community orchestra. He has lead the CCO in well over one hundred performances at multiple venues and with dozens of Cincinnati’s
best professional soloists. He helped CCO celebrate it’s 50th anniversary in May of 2004 with a gala performance at CCM’s Corbett Auditorium. His time as Musical Director has introduced nearly 500 new compositions and almost 100 new soloists to CCO’s members and audiences.
In another life Gerry taught school musicians for 38 years before retiring in 2003. For 24 of those years he was Professor of Music Education at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, where he trained band and orchestra directors. He continues as conductor of the preparatory department’s Cincinnati Junior Strings orchestra (for 9 to 14 year old musicians). He has conducted that group during tours of New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Malaysia, England, and Ireland. Dr. Doan also conducts each January at the Pan Pacific Music Festival in Sydney, Australia and has served as Conjoint Professor of Strings at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music. “Leftover” time is spent as a professional violist, a studio teacher, and as an arranger of works for string orchestra.
Gerry’s educational background includes degrees from Ohio Wesleyan and Ohio State Universities. He taught in the public schools of Bedford/Mt.Kisco, N.Y. and Marion, Ohio before turning to college teaching at Ohio State University, Adrian College (Michigan), and at CCM.
The Cincinnati Community Orchestra was founded in 1954 by a small group of ensemble players that were former members of the disbanded Jewish Community Orchestra. Hilbert Mosher, a horn player in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was the orchestra's first conductor. Largely through the efforts of personnel director and French Hornist Joyce Van Wye and her husband Jack, a bassonist, the orchestra steadily began to grow. Rehearsals were held on Monday nights at the First Unitarian Church which sponsored the orchestra along with the Local No. 1 Musicians Union. During its first few years of existence, concerts were also held at the church.
Through the years, the Cincinnati Community Orchestra continued to grow to a membership of approximately 85. After a variety of conductors led the orchestra through its first 13 seasons, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist Conny Kiradjieff assumed the role of Conductor/Music Director at the beginning of the 1967 season, a role he held until Dr. Gerald R. Doan took over in 1982. During Mr. Kiradjieff's tenure with the CCO, the orchestra had the opportunity to play with nationally renowned sololists including mega star Kathleen Battle, violinist and CSO concertmaster Phillip Ruder, CSO principal trumpet Philip Collins, and cellist Peter Wiley.
When the reigns of the orchestra were handed over to Dr. Doan during the 1982-1983 season, the orchestra continued to flourish and innovate. The CCO performed the first costumed Halloween concert in 1987, when Dr. Doan was carried to the podium in a coffin while guest pianist Elizabeth Pridonoff played Totentanz by Liszt. The CCO was also the first local orchestra to secure Cincinnati Enquirer cartoonist Jim Borgman as a guest soloist. Mr. Borgman drew caricatures for the audience while the orchestra performed Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens. Also on the list of guest artists were other highly sought after soloists such as Kurt Sassmannshaus, Lenore Hatfield, and Marian Spelman.
Dr. Doan continues to lead the orchestra into the 21st century, programming audience favorites and inviting talented guest artists such as Michael Davis, Frances Renzi and Lee Fiser. Making music is more fun for this orchestra than it has ever been!