POTSDAM — SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music will welcome a visiting conductor and present a Spring Festival Concert during the 2026 LoKo Arts Festival.

Renowned choral composer and conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya will lead the Crane Chorus and Crane Symphony Orchestra in a performance Friday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Helen M. Hosmer Concert Hall.

The public is also invited to a Q&A and pre-concert talk led by Harth-Bedoya on May 1 from 3 to 3:50 p.m. in the Proscenium Theater in the Performing Arts Center.

The orchestra will open with the overture to Leonard Bernstein’s operetta Candide, followed by Fiesta! Four Pop Dances for Orchestra by Jimmy López, which concludes with a “Techno” finale. The Crane Chorus will join the orchestra for the final movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, “Ode to Joy.”

Faculty soloists Lorraine Yaros-Sullivan, mezzo-soprano; Nathan Strock, bass-baritone; Kathleen Miller, soprano; and Christopher MacRae, tenor, will perform alongside student musicians.

The Crane Symphony Orchestra and Crane Chorus have prepared for the performance under the direction of Professor Michael Colburn, Nils Klykken and P. Wesley Roy.

Harth-Bedoya will complete a weeklong residency on campus as the 2026 Dorothy Albrecht Gregory Visiting Conductor. He was recently appointed distinguished director of orchestras and professor of conducting at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, a position previously held by Larry Rachleff, who served as the Gregory Visiting Conductor in 2014.

“I am delighted to bring Miguel Harth-Bedoya to Potsdam for the 2026 Crane Spring Festival,” said interim Crane School of Music Dean David Heuser. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with him many years ago, and I feel the combination of conducting expertise and teaching experience he brings is ideal for the Dorothy Gregory residency. I am sure that having him here for the entire week leading up to the concert, working with our students, will be meaningful and rewarding for them.”

The concert will close out the LoKo Arts Festival, which includes master classes and activities at the Crane School of Music. All events are free and open to the public. For a full schedule, visit potsdam.edu/loko.

The performance will be broadcast live on the Crane School of Music YouTube channel at concert time. To view the program and see other upcoming streaming performances, visit potsdam.edu/cranelive.

About the guest conductor:

Harth-Bedoya is an Emmy Award-winning and Grammy-nominated conductor with 35 years of experience. In addition to college teaching, he established The Conducting Institute, where students can learn the fundamentals of conducting.

He has served as chief conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, where he now holds the title of music director laureate. He also has held music director positions with the Auckland Philharmonia, the Eugene Symphony, the Lima Philharmonic Orchestra and the New York Youth Symphony, and has appeared as a guest conductor internationally.

Born in Peru, Harth-Bedoya received a bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and a master’s degree from The Juilliard School. He studied with Otto-Werner Mueller, as well as with Seiji Ozawa and Gustav Meier at Tanglewood, and received an honorary doctor of music degree from Texas Christian University.

The Dorothy Albrecht Gregory Visiting Conductor Fund, established by Dorothy Albrecht Gregory ’61, and the Adeline Maltzan Crane Chorus Performance Tour Fund, established by Gary C. Jaquay ’67, support visiting conductors and travel opportunities for the Crane Chorus.

LoKo Arts is supported by Kathryn Kofoed Lougheed ’54 and Donald Lougheed. For more information, visit potsdam.edu/loko.