About

Preludio Orchestra is the Music Institute of Chicago's youth orchestra. The mission of Preludio Orchestra is to introduce young musicians to playing in an orchestral setting and learning great orchestral repertoire. Concurrent enrollment in their public or private school's music program is required. String players in Preludio play at a Suzuki Book 3 level and above, and wind/percussion players are admitted based on experience and teacher consultation.

Since it's inception in 2015, the orchestra has doubled in size and added wind and percussion players to give students a full symphony orchestra experience. The orchestra rehearses on Saturdays from 12:30-2pm at the MIC Winnetka campus in the Thoresen Performance Center, and gives 2 annual performances in Nichols Concert Hall at the Evanston campus.

Aaron Kaplan has been the conductor of the Preludio Orchestra since 2015. Aaron is a Chicago-based conductor, music director, cellist, teacher and arranger. He is currently the Assistant Orchestra Director at Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South High Schools where he co-teaches all of the curricular orchestra classes, is the assistant conductor for the Glenbrook Symphony Orchestra, teaches AP Music Theory, writes the orchestrations for both schools' annual Variety Shows, and conducts the pit orchestra for the Glenbrook Musical. He previously served as the Interim Conductor for the Quad City Youth Symphony Orchestras and the Music Director/Conductor for the Sangamon Valley Youth Orchestra and Community Orchestra. He has been the music director/conductor for 50 musical theatre productions including Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, Guys & Dolls, Of Thee I Sing, The Producers and dozens more. Aaron has attended conducting festivals in the US and Europe, most recently in Sofia, Bulgaria with the New Symphony of Bulgaria and Zlin, Czech Republic with the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic. Aaron is also the Assistant Director for the Chicago Suzuki Institute, operated through MIC, where he conducts an orchestra and the cello choir. Aaron is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with degrees in Cello Performance and Music Education (2011) and a Master's in Orchestral Conducting (2013). He studied cello with Holly Compton, Blake Brasch, Ani Aznavoorian, and Brandon Vamos, and conducting with Donald Schleicher.