American Kahani: Indian American Conductor Sameer Patel Has a Busy Year Ahead in the Western Classical Music Circuit

American Kahani
By Bhargavi Kulkarni

Indian American conductor Sameer Patel has a lot to look forward to this year. He makes his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Princeton Symphony; as well as return appearances with the Florida Orchestra and La Jolla Symphony and Chorus.

The 40-year-old has been conducting western classical music orchestras for the past 20 years. As artistic director at the San Diego Youth Symphony, he works for an organization that serves “close to 600 students, beginning through pre-professional student musicians annually in 13 full orchestras and large ensembles.”

Patel previously worked as an associate conductor at the San Diego Symphony for four years. He left that position in 2019, and over the last couple of years, “especially when things picked back up over the pandemic, and performances started to resume,” he started traveling and working as a guest conductor. With his current job in San Diego, where he lives with his wife and two kids, Patel continues to have one foot in both worlds — “the performance world which is conducting orchestras like in Princeton and in Chicago and elsewhere” — as well as “sharing music with young musicians.”

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