Founded in 1958 by Boris Koutzen

Boris Koutzen

Boris Koutzen was a Russian-American violinist composer and music educator.-Biography:Koutzen was born in Uman, Southern Russia. He began composing at the age of six and studied violin with his father. In 1918 his family moved to Moscow, where Boris entered the Moscow Conservatory to study violin...

 and other musicians from the NBC Symphony who were residents of Chappaqua, New York and neighboring towns in Westchester County

Westchester County, New York

Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...

 , the Chappaqua Orchestra annually presents a season of orchestral and chamber concerts. Renowned conductor Andrew Litton

Andrew Litton

Andrew Litton is an American orchestral conductor. Litton is a graduate of The Fieldston School, and holds both undergraduate and Masters degrees in music from Juilliard....

's first conducting directorship was with the Chappaqua Orchestra, and the orchestra has also been conducted by Norman Leyden

Norman Leyden

Norman Fowler Leyden is an American, conductor, arranger, and clarinetist. He has worked in film and television and is perhaps best known as the conductor of the Oregon Symphony Pops orchestra...

, Wolfgang Schanzer, Jesse Levine, and James Sadewhite. The orchestra has premiered and commissioned works from composers such as Paul Creston

Paul Creston

Paul Creston was an Italian American composer of classical music.Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self‐taught as a composer. He was an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, initiated into the national honorary Alpha Alpha chapter...

, John Corigliano

John Corigliano

John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...

, Lowell Liebermann

Lowell Liebermann

Lowell Liebermann is an American composer, pianist and conductor.At the age of sixteen, Liebermann performed at Carnegie Hall, playing his Piano Sonata, op. 1...

, Michael Jeffrey Shapiro

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro is a noted American composer and conductor.The son of a klezmer band clarinetist, Michael Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and spent most of his high school years in Baldwin, a Long Island suburb. The winner of several piano competitions during his youth, he earned...

, Emily Wong, and David Macdonald. Soloists such as Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American pop-R&B recording artist, producer, dancer, model, actress and showgirl. In 1983, she became the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America, but a scandal generated by her having posed for nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine...

, Ruth Laredo

Ruth Laredo

Ruth Laredo was an American classical pianist.She became known in the 1970s in particular for her premiere recordings of the 10 sonatas of Scriabin and the complete solo piano works of Rachmaninoff, for her Ravel recordings and in the last 16½ years before her death for her series in the...

, Joseph Fuchs, Kikuei Ikeda, Jerome Rose, Jon Manasse, Tim Fain

Tim Fain

-Early life and education:A native of Santa Monica, California, violinist Tim Fain is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Victor Danchenko, and The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Mann. Before Curtis, Fain studied with Eduard Schmieder...

, and others have appeared with the orchestra. Michael Jeffrey Shapiro

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro is a noted American composer and conductor.The son of a klezmer band clarinetist, Michael Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and spent most of his high school years in Baldwin, a Long Island suburb. The winner of several piano competitions during his youth, he earned...

is currently the orchestra's Music Director and Conductor.