Artist Biographies

Tara Villa Keith

conductor

These performances mark Tara Keith’s first appearance with the Charlotte Symphony.

Tara Villa Keith is in her nineteenth season as music director of the Davidson College Symphony Orchestra (DCSO) in North Carolina where she is an associate professor of music. She recently completed an eleven-season tenure as music director of the Lee County Community Orchestra (LCCO) in Sanford, North Carolina. With the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Tara has served as a cover conductor and pre-concert speaker for several seasons, and was the premiere instructor for their Symphony 101 adult education program.

Tara was recognized as a 2019 Honored Artist of The American Prize, a series of non-profit national competitions in the performing arts. Under Tara’s direction, the DCSO was the national winner of The American Prize 2018 for orchestral performance in the collegiate division.

Outside of Davidson, Tara has conducted orchestras throughout the south and northeast. She has particularly enjoyed serving as a clinician and guest conductor for middle and high school orchestras in North Carolina, performing with the Northwest School of the Arts Symphonic Orchestra in 2019 and the North Carolina Eastern Regional String Orchestra in 2017. Tara has participated in summer festivals such as the Atlantic Music Festival in Maine and the Hot Springs Music Festival in Arkansas. After winning the International Conducting Competition in 2008, Tara guest conducted the Macon Symphony Orchestra in Georgia. Other engagements include performances with the Union Symphony Orchestra (North Carolina), Capitol Opera Harrisburg (Pennsylvania), and Opera at USC (South Carolina).

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Tara grew up studying percussion and piano at the Preparatory of the Peabody Conservatory. Tara’s previous conducting mentors include Brian Norcross, Gerardo Edelstein, and Donald Portnoy. Tara holds degrees from Franklin & Marshall College, the Pennsylvania State University, and the University of South Carolina. Off the podium she is an active competitive ballroom dancer, and when time permits, she also enjoys practicing yoga, playing with her many cats, birding with her horn-playing husband, Eric, and keeping up with their energetic daughter, Villanaia.

Cirque de la Symphonie

Cirque de la Symphonie is an exciting production designed to bring the magic of cirque to the music hall. For more than 15 years, it has thrilled and bedazzled veteran concert-goers and new patrons as they see accomplished aerial flyers, acrobats, contortionists, dancers, jugglers, balancers, and strongmen perform to live symphony music. They include world record-holders, goldmedal winners of international competitions, Olympians, and some of the most experienced cirque talent ever seen.

Their performances are uniquely adapted to stage accommodations shared with the symphony, and each artist’s performance is choreographed to the music arranged in collaboration with the maestro. When the artists of Cirque de la Symphonie perform in front of the full orchestra, an incredible fusion of these two great art forms takes place. The aerialists and acrobats turn the concert into a three-dimensional entertainment extravaganza, and the orchestra seems to play with enhanced enthusiasm.