Roger Kalia, Sameer Patel receive 2018 Solti Foundation Career Assistance Award

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Roger Kalia and Sameer Patel, two Indian American music conductors, are among eight who have received the 2018 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award.

Kalia is the assistant conductor of the Pacific Symphony and music director of the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Kalia is also the co-founder and music director of the Lake George Music Festival and has previously served as the assistant conductor of the Charlotte Symphony as well as the music director of both the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in California and Columbus Symphony Orchestra in Indiana.

In the 2018-19 year, Kalia will be working with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, the Lake George Music Festival Symphony Orchestra and Symphony New Hampshire as he has already worked with the New York Philharmonic and Royal Scottish National Orchestra as well as the Pittsburgh, Seattle, Utah, Fort Worth, and Danish National symphonies.

In addition to receiving this year’s Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, Kalia has also received the award in 2013 and 2017 along with winning second place in the 2011 Memphis Symphony International Conducting Competition and a 2011 Fellowship at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Kalia received his doctorate from Indiana University, where he served as an associate instructor and assistant conductor of the IU Opera Theater and New Music Ensemble.

Patel is the associate conductor of the San Diego Symphony and of Idaho’s Sun Valley Summer Symphony. He has previously served as the associate conductor of Indiana’s Fort Wayne Philharmonic and will return to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for the 2018-19 year.

Patel has been receiving to Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards for three consecutive years now and he has also received a 2014 Chicago Sinfonietta Project Inclusion Conducting Freeman Fellowship, a 2010 Boston Philharmonic Zander Fellowship, a 2011 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship and was a participant in the League of American Orchestra’s Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview.

Patel graduated of the University of Michigan and was a guest conductor with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, Leipziger Sinfonieorchester and Orchestra Giovanile Italiana.

For the past 14 years, the Solti Foundation U.S has been assisting young U.S. conductors to further develop their talent and careers.