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Musical director Marek Rachelski Marek Rachelski has been music director at Valley Outreach Synagogue since 2003 and simultaneously at Temple Bet Knesset Bamidbar in Summerlin since 2004. He has established himself as conductor, pianist/organist/harpsichordist, teacher and composer/arranger. Formerly, a conductor of the Prague Ballet Theater, he has appeared with orchestras in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Canada and the United States. From 1990 - 1995 he was Music Director of the St. Paul of the Cross Chamber Orchestra and 70-voice Chorus, providing a five-concert series for the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. From 1992 - 1995 Mr. Rachelski was on the conducting faculty of De Paul University where he gave the Chicago premiere of Benjamin Britten¹s The Company of Angels and conducted Mozart's Don Giovanni at Chicago¹s Merle Reskin Theater. Previously as Assistant Conductor with the Elgin Symphony (Illinois), he was Music Director of the Valley Civic Orchestra and conducted the Elgin Area Youth Orchestras. A published and commissioned composer, he was appointed in 1989 to write for the Papal Mass in Detroit, where his setting of Psalm 145, sung by a choir of 1200 and an assembly of 100,000 at the Pontiac Silverdome, was reviewed as “masterful.” As a producer/director, he has completed over a dozen recordings involving musicians from the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, Lyric Opera Chorus and Chicago Symphony Chorus. Marek holds the Certificate in Conducting from the Musical Faculty of the Academy of Arts in Prague. He earned his Master of Music in Conducting from Northwestern University and his Bachelor of Music (with distinction) and Master of Music (in organ performance) from Wayne State University. He has studied conducting individually with Frantisek Vajnar, Jiri Belohlavek, Kenneth Kiesler, Harold Farbermann, Robert A. Harris, John Paynter, Frederick Ockwell, Dennis Tini and Joseph Labuta and in masterclass with Leonard Slatkin, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Daniel Lewis, and Gustav Meier. A former Music Editor and Director of Recordings for the J. S. Paluch Company and World Library Publications, he has led many successful choral reading sessions, workshops and showcases over the last 15 years. He was the music editor for the 4th and 5th editions of the We Celebrate Hymnal, the five-volume Service Music for the Mass and the first edition of Cantos del Pueblo di Dios. During his tenure as Director of Recordings he produced over 15 collections of choral music published by World Library. |