MUSIC DIRECTOR
JASON IKEEM RODGERS
Maestro Jason Ikeem Rodgers - conductor, composer, and arranger - is the Founder and Music Director of Orchestra Noir, the Atlanta African-American Orchestra. Maestro’s conducting career began when founding director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein protégé, John Mauceri, invited Maestro Rodgers to Hollywood to study conducting as his apprentice during its 2006-2007 Concert Season.
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Since his apprenticeship in Hollywood, Maestro Rodgers has appeared with orchestras in North America and abroad achieving numerous international awards and accolades. In August of 2015 Maestro Rodgers was awarded first prize in the London Classical Soloists Competition held in Great Britain. In 2014 Maestro Rodgers was named winner of the International Conducting Competition held in the U.S. and also first prize winner of the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina Conducting Competition held in Florence, Italy. Maestro Rodgers would return to Italy in the same year to make his debut with the Orchestra Di Toscana Classica. In the spring of 2022, Maestro Rodgers made his Charlotte Symphony debut conducting a program of Beethoven and his own arrangements of 1990s R&B and hip-hop hits.
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As a composer and arranger, Maestro Rodgers has been commissioned to compose orchestral works by prominent arts organizations in America as well as internationally - such as Atlanta’s High Museum of Art with a work entitled “Permanent” in the summer of 2021 and his original composition “Black Elegy” for the British Columbia Arts Council in Vancouver, Canada which will be debuted there in the summer of 2023. Additionally, Maestro Rodgers’ arrangement for hip-hop superstar 2Chainz’s song “Forgiven” was featured on the “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”. Maestro has also arranged for major television networks such as Oprah’s OWN Network’s “Greenleaf”. Most recently, Maestro Rodgers has created orchestral arrangements for Amazon’s hit show “Harlem” which began its inaugural season in 2022.
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Maestro Rodgers received his Professional Studies Degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in Orchestral Conducting under Carl Topilow and Louis Lane, and a Masters of Music in Conducting from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts under Serge Zehnacker, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Performance, under Clifton Matthews, from the same institution.