Johannes Müller Stosch
Director of Orchestral Activities
Office: UMC-A509
e-mail: johannes.stosch@csulb.edu
German-born conductor Johannes Müller Stosch as Director of Orchestral Activities at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music. He grew the orchestra to one of largest and finest in Southern California. In 2017 the Bob Cole Conservatory Symphony played in Germany and the Czech Republic for sold-out venues and toured South Korea in 2013. Praised as possessing "stylistic, charismatic, expressive and expert" leadership, Stosch also serves as Music Director and Conductor of Holland Symphony, a professional regional orchestra in West Michigan. During his tenure, Holland Symphony has seen unprecedented growth in size and quality of performances, as well as record numbers of season subscriptions. He was instrumental in establishing the Young American Composers Competition to assist young composers gain wider recognition. In 2019 Stosch was named the new Music Director and Conductor of the Orange County Youth Symphony, celebrating their 50th anniversary as the oldest and one of the largest and most prestigious youth orchestras in California.
Johannes Müller Stosch keeps an active guest-conducting schedule both internationally and nationally. His most recent engagements include concerts with the Kunming Philharmonic in China, Long Beach Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY), College-Conservatory of Music (Cincinnati, OH), UBC Symphony in Vancouver, Canada, and at the University of Oregon in Eugene. In 2009, Stosch was a featured guest conductor with the Busan Sinfonietta in Korea. This concert was broadcast on national TV (KBS). Previous conducting positions include the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Brockport Symphony in New York, Tri State Players in Ohio, conducting/coaching staff at the Opera Theatre Festival in Lucca, Italy, and Music Director of the Museumsinsel-Operafestival in Berlin, Germany. A concert tour with the Eastman String Orchestra brought him to Japan, conducting concerts during the Hiroshima Peace Festival in 2006.
An avid and natural operatic conductor with "stylish authority," he has been a frequent guest conductor for new opera productions at Cincinnati’s famous College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), including the main-stage production of Britten’s Owen Wingrave. Previous engagements include Mozart’s Così fan Tutte, the world premier of Joel Hoffman’s The Memory Game, Dvořák’s Rusalka and Virgil Thomson’s The Mother Of Us All. He worked repeatedly as visiting opera conductor at the Opera Theater at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. During his doctoral studies he served as Assistant Conductor of the famed Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra, and won Eastman’s prestigious Walter Hagen Conducting Prize.
Aside from his passion in conducting, Stosch has a special interest in performance practice and early music. In Germany, he worked with Hannover’s L’Arco, Bremer Ratsmusik, and Concerto Brandenburg. He had also frequent appearances on organ and harpsichord with Pacific Symphony in Orange County. Concert tours as a soloist and collaborative artist have taken him throughout the U.S., Germany, Italy, Korea, Chile, and Japan. Stosch has several commercial recordings to his credit all of which have been played on public radio.
At California State University, Long Beach, Johannes Müller Stosch has served two terms as Director of the Bob Cole Conservatory and Interim Associate Dean of the College of the Arts.
