Conductor Profiles

Dr. Michel Galante
Director

Michel Galante founded the Argento Chamber Ensemble in 2000, and has conducted in North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, leading orchestras and ensembles including the Janáček Philharmonic, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Columbia University Collegium Musicum Choir and Orchestra, the Ensemble Courage of Dresden, the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, Manhattan School of Music TACTUS Ensemble, the Desoff Choir, the Princeton University Chamber Choir, and ICE (the International Contemporary Ensemble). His awards include Fulbright, Hertz, and Mellon fellowships, as well as prizes from ASCAP and the Composer's Guild.

Recently awarded a DMA from Columbia University, where he worked with Tristan Murail, he also studied with Thea Musgrave, John Corigliano, and analysis with Carl Schachter and Charles Rosen. He recently completed a commission for the Kate Weare Dance Company, and is currently writing for the New York Philharmonic’s composer’s Studio, for the New York New Music Ensemble, and for Paris’ Ensemble Court-circuit. In Fall 2009, he began his appointment as artistic director of Austrian Cultural Forum’s Moving Sounds Festival, which pairs contemporary music with electronic performers and installation artists. He is a proponent of digital media as a means to create, produce and distribute music, and was one of twelve musicians picked to be a stagiere at IRCAM, France's leading electronic music institution.

Brandon Eldredge
Assistant Director

Brandon Eldredge is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in Music Education. During his term at TCNJ, where he studied piano with Tomoko Kanamaru, Brandon won competitions to participate in master classes with internationally acclaimed pianists Leon Bates, Fred Karpoff, and Elizabeth and Eugene Pridonoff. In the spring of 2009, he won the TCNJ Orchestra Concerto Competition and performed with the orchestra as a piano soloist. He has also made a guest appearance with the college’s woodwind quintet, and continues to serve as the accompanist for the TCNJ Chorale.  Outside of his academic work, Brandon served as the TCNJ chapter President of The National Association for Music Education and associate conductor of the TCNJ Orchestra, under the leadership of Philip Tate and Roger McKinney.  He was inducted as a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society, and Phi Kappa Phi and Golden Key International Honor Societies. Brandon currently teaches piano at the Hunterdon Academy of the Arts and accompanies church children’s choirs and adult choirs in Flemington.