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A Chat with Andrés Franco, the New Artistic Director and Conductor of TCC's Signature Symphony

Aired on Friday, March 13th.

On this edition of ST, we're pleased to speak with Andrés Franco, the newly named Artistic Director and Conductor of the Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community College. The TCC Board of Regents approved Frano's hiring at a meeting held yesterday; he will replace Dr. Barry Epperley, the founder and longtime leader of this orchestra, who is retiring. Originally from Colombia, Franco has served three seasons as the Artistic Director of the Concerts in the Garden Summer Festival with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and five seasons as Principal Conductor of Caminos del Inka. Franco's two earlier appearances with the Signature Symphony -- when he was one of three finalists invited to lead the orchestra over the course of the 2014-15 season -- found him conducting the Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo, the Symphony No. 4 by Tchaikovsky, the Danzón No. 2 by contemporary Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, and various popular selections from the film music of John Williams. Franco speaks with us today about where he hopes to take the Signature Symphony -- in terms of performance, outreach, programming, and so on -- in the coming years.

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
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