Harold Weller
ASO Founding Director 1970-1977
Harold (Hal) Weller is the Founding Music Director & Conductor Laureate of the Las Vegas Philharmonic. Weller retired from the Philharmonic in 2007 completing a distinguished forty-five year career as music director of orchestras in Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. Weller is also the Founding Music Director of the Ashland (OH) Symphony and the Old Dominion (VA) Symphony as well as Conductor Laureate of the Flagstaff (AZ) Symphony.
In November 2007, Hal created the Foundation to Assist Young Musicians (FAYM), a non-profit organization that assists with the education and career development of talented and needy young musicians world wide. In 2008 FAYM established its El Sistema inspired “Violins for Kids” project in Las Vegas which offers instruments and instruction to inner-city youngsters in Las Vegas free of charge.
As an arts advocate and activist, he has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Conductors Guild, the Nevada Arts Council, and the Nevada School of the Arts. He is an honorary board member of the Las Vegas Youth Orchestras. Born in Dayton Ohio on July 6, 1941, Weller holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Miami (OH) University and an MA from The Ohio State University. He also studied at the Oberlin and Cincinnati Conservatories of Music. He began his professional conducting career at age 20, when he was engaged to conduct opera at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. His conducting teachers include Orion Dalley, A. Clyde Roller, Richard Lert, and Haig Yaghjian.
The Mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar B. Goodman, proclaimed October 9, 2005 as ‘Harold Weller Day’ in Las Vegas and again on June 30, 2007 in recognition of Hal’s many contributions and accomplishments for the arts in Las Vegas. Weller received the 2003 Achievement Award in Arts & Entertainment from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the Governor’s Award (New Mexico), and Flagstaff’s Citizen of the Year Award in 1991. In 1995, Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory named an asteroid in his honor.
Married with two sons and two grandchildren, Hal and his wife Betsy take great pleasure in the pursuits of their active family.
Betsy and I often reminisce about our seven wonderful years in Ashland from 1970-1977 when at age 29 I joined the faculty of Ashland College with the task of forming a Symphony Orchestra. Interestingly, AC had only one violin major at that time and, as I learned later, no budget to support the orchestra. But in very short order, an orchestra was formed from town and gown and grew into a quite respectable musical ensemble.
During that time, Betsy taught at Ashland Junior High and made 800 Center Street a beautiful home for us and our two young sons, Kurt and Chris (both of whom, by the way, studied violin with Mary Ann Basinger). Perhaps most importantly over those years, we formed dear and lasting friendships which we will cherish always. The community’s support of the ASO was then and remains to this day the stellar feature which has ensured that the ASO will always be the Jewel of Ashland County.
To all who participated with us during those early years and those who have carried the torch since, we send our fondest greetings and congratulations on this Golden Year! Well done! BRAVO!
P.S. The Hal Weller for Mayor was a real prospect lead by Liz Pastor, Betsy, and others, who were concerned about the perservation of Ashland’s historic sites. Lucky for Ashland, I landed a position at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA to form a new civic symphony and moved before the campaign materialized!
This biography was printed in the September 28, 2019, ASO concert program.