Peter Kjome and Marcelo Lehning

Peter Kjome has been President and CEO of the Grand Rapids Symphony since returning to the orchestra in 2008. The Symphony is an innovative and dynamic organization recognized nationally for excellence, reaching nearly 200,000 attendees at the concerts and educational programs that the orchestra’s superb musicians perform each year.

Peter previously worked for 3M Company in Saint Paul, Minnesota for eight years. At 3M, he served in a variety of capacities, including strategic planning, marketing, business process improvement, and general management. Before returning to the Symphony, he led strategic planning for the 3M Consumer & Office Business. Prior to that, he was a member of the Grand Rapids Symphony for eight years.

Peter received his master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, majoring in marketing and management & strategy. Kjome received a bachelor’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Peter is Immediate Past Chair of the Group 2 orchestras, League of American Orchestras and is a board member of the Economic Club of Grand Rapids and Blandford Nature Center. In 2011, the League of American Orchestras presented Kjome with the Helen M. Thompson award for exceptional leadership in recognition of his work.

Marcelo Lehninger, new Music Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, is in his first season with the orchestra in 2016-17.

The Brazilian-born conductor recently concluded his fourth and final season as Music Director of the New West Symphony Orchestra, during which he was awarded the 2014 Helen M. Thompson Award for an Emerging Music Director by the League of American Orchestras.

Handpicked by James Levine to join the conducting staff of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2010, Lehninger spent five seasons there as Assistant Conductor and later as Associate Conductor. On three days’ notice in 2011, he replaced Levine for performances that included the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Harrison Birtwistle in Boston. With Lehninger on the podium, the BSO repeated the program weeks later in New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

In February 2015, Lehninger first led the Grand Rapids Symphony in a critically acclaimed performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World.” That season also included debuts with the Detroit and Milwaukee Symphonies and the Rochester Philharmonic plus return engagements with the Florida Orchestra and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

In April 2016, Lehninger returned to DeVos Performance Hall for performances of Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome.” Last season, Lehninger made debuts with the symphonies of Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Fort Worth in the United States; with the symphonies of Winnipeg and Kitchener-Waterloo in Canada; and with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France plus return engagements with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Minas Gerais Philharmonic in Brazil.

Maestro Lehninger’s 2016-17 season includes first appearances with the symphony orchestras of Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, with the symphonies of Tucson and Portland in the United States, and with Symphony Nova Scotia in Canada.

An alumnus of the National Conducting Institute, Lehninger made a successful debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2007 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and was invited to conduct the NSO again in 2008.

During the 2007-08 season, Lehninger served as music advisor of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, composed of 120 musicians from more than 20 countries with Placido Domingo as artistic advisor. In the summer of 2008, Maestro Lehninger toured with YOA and pianist Nelson Freire in South America, conducting concerts in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

Chosen by Kurt Masur, Lehninger in 2008 was awarded the First Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship, sponsored by the American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation. He was Maestro Masur’s assistant with the Orchestre National de France during its residency in Vienna as well as with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and with the New York Philharmonic. In 2011, he participated in the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, organized by the League of American Orchestras, conducting the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a guest conductor in North America, Lehninger has led the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Houston, Seattle and Toronto among others. In 2013, Mr. Lehninger recorded the work of composer Christopher Culpo for Radio France in Paris, conducting the Orchestre National de France.

Before dedicating his career to conducting, Lehninger studied violin and piano. He holds a Master’s degree from the Conductors Institute at New York’s Bard College.

A dual citizen of Brazil and Germany, Marcelo Lehninger is the son of German violinist Erich Lehninger and Brazilian pianist Sônia Goulart.

Lehninger, his wife, Laura Krech, and their daughters Sofia and Camila, plan to move to Grand Rapids in 2017.