The Lancaster Festival is especially proud to welcome Gary Sheldon in this, his 21st season as conductor of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra and 6th season as artistic director. Since he founded the Lancaster Festival Orchestra in 1988, musicians have come from four continents to Lancaster to perform under his direction.

He continues to inspire the Festival community with innovative programming and growing community outreach. His visits to Lancaster schools this May showcased the talents of several area high school music and art students who joined him in leading the assemblies.

Maestro Sheldon currently conducts for the San Francisco Ballet during the winter season and he is conductor of the Spokane Symphony at the Festival at Sandpoint in Idaho.

He is former interim music director of the Columbus Symphony, BalletMet Conductor for 22 seasons and a past guest conductor for Opera Columbus. Recent guest conducting engagements have included the Alberta Ballet, Missouri Symphony Orchestra, Palm Beach Symphony and Slovak Radio Orchestra.

During his tenure music director of the Marin Symphony in California from 1990-2001, he was awarded the Bill Graham Memorial Prize for “Distinguished Service in the Arts” by the Marin Cultural Museum. He is founding conductor of a new youth orchestra in San Francisco and he is an advisory board member for the Stars of Marin educational series.

Gary and his wife Janet are proud new parents of twins, Ruby and Jacob.