Gregory Hughes is the founding Artistic Director, General Manager, and Principal Conductor of Chicago’s Lakeview Orchestra, and was named the 2016 Conductor of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras. He has collaborated with world-class artists Rachel Barton Pine and Andrew Staupe, and many of Chicago’s finest musicians including Holly Mulcahy, Miles Maner, Heather Wittels, and David Schrader.
“Throughout the concert, Hughes established himself as a bold interpreter.... it is easy for a conductor to become a traffic-director, merely making sure everyone gets to where they need to go. But in the Strauss and especially in the Beethoven, Hughes consistently found opportunities to make gestures come alive with physicality....”
“Thank you to the brilliant and talented conductor, Gregory Hughes who brought Jim Stephenson’s Tributes Violin Concerto to the Lakeview Orchestra audiences! What an absolute pleasure to work with an artist like Greg, he’s the kind of musician who is knowledgeable, skilled, and passionate about music... and a total joy to work with. Such a rare combination.”
Gregory Hughes is the founding Artistic Director, General Manager, and Principal Conductor of Chicago’s Lakeview Orchestra, and was named the 2016 Conductor of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras. He has collaborated with world-class artists Rachel Barton Pine and Andrew Staupe, and many of Chicago’s finest musicians including Holly Mulcahy, Miles Maner, Heather Wittels, and David Schrader.
Mr. Hughes founded Lakeview Orchestra in January of 2013 and rapidly established the ensemble as the premier semi-professional orchestra in the City of Chicago. Under his leadership the orchestra performed the Chicago premiere of Carl Nielsen’s opera Maskarade with the Vox 3 Collective, and commissioned and premiered choreography for Márquez’s Danzón No. 2 in partnership with Ballet Chicago.
Equally comfortable in his role as Lakeview Orchestra’s General Manager, Hughes has orchestrated the rapid growth of the ensemble’s audience and community of donors. In 2017 the orchestra launched the Advancing Excellence: Making Moves campaign — the campaign itself a brainchild of Mr. Hughes — designed to dramatically increase the orchestra’s financial and artistic capacity. The successful completion of the campaign in 2018 consequently lead to the orchestra’s relocation to the Athenaeum Theatre, and significant investments in the ensemble’s audience development initiatives and artistic programs.
Mr. Hughes was educated at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Wheaton, Illinois, where he studied conducting with Daniel Sommerville and Paul Wiens, and bassoon with Jonathan Saylor. He has also studied conducting with Paul Vermel, Samuel Jones and Donald Portnoy at the Conductors Institute of South Carolina, and with Kirk Trevor and Frank Nemhauser at the International Conducting Institute in New York City.
Illinois Conductor of the Year (2016)
Illinois Programming of the Year (2023)
Photos by Marisa KM. Web-ready and high-resolution images are available for download here.
Bach, Johann Sebastian
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
Barber, Samuel
Adagio for String
First Essay for Orchestra
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano (“Triple”)
Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”)
Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale”
Symphony No. 7
Symphony No. 8
Berlioz, Hector
Symphonie Fantastique
Bernstein, Leonard
Overture to Candide
Bizet, Georges
L'Arlésienne Suite No. 1
L'Arlésienne Suite No. 2
Brahms, Johannes
Double Concerto for Violin and Cello
Hungarian Dances Nos. 1-6
Piano Concerto No. 2
Piano Quartet (orch. Schoenberg)
Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 3
Violin Concerto
Brochu, Bryan
Zenith
Bruckner, Anton
Symphony No. 7
Chabrier, Emmanuel
España
Chen, Jia Jie
Tomorrow’s Promise
Clinton, George S.
The Rose of Sonora: A Violin Concerto in Five Scenes
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel
Symphonic Variations on an African Air
Violin Concerto
Copland, Aaron
Appalachian Spring (for 13 instruments)
Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo
Outdoor Overture
Debussy, Claude
La mer
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Dukas, Paul
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Dvořák, Antonín
The Noon Witch
Serenade for Strings
Slavonic Dance No. 1
Symphony No. 8
Symphony No. 9 ("New World")
Elgard, Edward
Sea Pictures
Fauré, Gabriel
Requiem
Gillingham, David
Aerodynamics
Glinka, Mikhail
Valse-Fantasie
Gounod, Charles
Petite symphonie
Grainger, Percy
Molly on the Shore
Grieg, Edvard
Holberg Suite
Peer Gynt Suite No. 1
Händel, Georg Friedrich
Sinfonia from Messiah
Haydn, Franz Joseph
Cello Concerto No. 1: Moderato
Symphony No. 88
Symphony No. 101 (“The Clock”)
Trumpet Concerto
Haydn, Johann Michael
Te Deum ("Esterházy"), Hob.XIIIc:1
Hindemith, Paul
Mathis der Maler Symphony
Symphonic Metamorphoses
on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Honegger, Arthur
Pastorale d'été
Humperdinck, Engelbert
Overture to Hänsel und Gretel
Ives, Charles
The Unanswered Question
Liszt, Franz
Les préludes
Mahler, Gustav
Symphony No. 1 ("Titan")
Symphony No. 5
Márquez, Arturo
Danzón No. 2
Mascagni, Pietro
Intermezzo from Cavelleria Rusticana
Mendelssohn, Felix
Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”)
Symphony No. 5 (“Reformation”)
Violin Concerto
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Bassoon Concerto
Oboe Concerto
Overture to Die Zauberflöte
Overture to Don Giovanni
Piano Concerto No. 9 (“Jeunehomme”)
Requiem Mass
Serenade No. 11, K. 375
Symphony No. 1
Nicolai, Otto
Overture to Die lustigen Wieber von Windsor
Nielsen, Carl
Maskarade
Symphony No. 2 "The Four Temperaments"
Panion, Henry
Dreams of Hope
Poulenc, Francis
Sinfonietta
Prokofiev, Sergei
Lieutenant Kijé Symphonic Suite
Peter and The Wolf
Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2
Symphony No. 5
Rachmaninov, Sergei
Piano Concerto No. 2
Ravel, Maurice
Boléro
Le Tombeau de Couperin
Reinecke, Carl
Flute Concerto
Respighi, Ottorino
Pines of Rome
Ries, Ferdinand
Symphony No. 2
Rimsky-Korsakov, Nicolai
Capriccio espagnol
Scheherazade
Rossini, Gioacchino
Overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia
Russo, Thomas
Fanfare for Christopher
Saint-Saëns, Camille
Suite Algérienne
Schaller, Jeff
Piece for Orchestra
Schubert, Franz
Stabat mater, D. 175
Symphony No. 3
Schumann, Robert
Symphony No. 3 “Rhenish”
Shostakovich, Dmitri
Piano Concerto No. 2
Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 9
Sibelius, Jean
Finlandia
Karelia Suite
Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 5
Smetana, Bedrich
Vltava (Die Moldau) from Ma Vlast
Smyth, Ethel
Serenade
Overture to The Wreckers
Sousa, John Philip
King Cotton
Spohr, Ludwig "Louis"
Clarinet Concerto No. 4
Stephenson, James
Violin Concerto “Tributes”
Strauss, Johann (Jr.)
Emperor Waltz
Neue-Pizzicato Polka
Persischer Marsch
Tritsch-Tratsch Polka
Strauss, Richard
Duet Concertino
Four Last Songs
Horn Concerto No. 1
Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Stravinsky, Igor
Firebird Suite (1919 version)
Fireworks
Petrushka (1946/47 Version)
The Rite of Spring
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr
The Nutcracker
Selections from The Sleeping Beauty
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 5
Violin Concerto
Vaughn Williams, Ralph
English Folk Song Suite
Van Schouwen, David
Flute Concerto
Piano Concerto
Viola Concerto
Theme & Variations for Orchestra
Verdi, Giuseppe
Overture to La forza del destino
Wagner, Richard
Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Siegfried-Idyll
Waldteufel, Émile
Les Patineurs Valse
Weber, Carl Maria von
Overture to Oberon
Whitacre, Eric
October
Pops Repertoire Conducted in Performance
Anderson, Leroy
A Christmas Festival
Sleigh Ride
Hague, Albert
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Jessel, Leon
Parade of the Wooden Soldiers
Silvestri, Alan
Suite from The Polar Express
Williams, John
Suite from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
