Ada Pelleg

Recognized as one of Israel’s prominent conductors today, Maestra Pelleg is the founder and Music Director of the Galilee Music Center and the conductor of the Israeli Strings Ensemble. She has conducted orchestras and choirs in Israel and abroad, including the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Oregon Bach Festival's orchestra and choir, the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Opera Choir and many others. In December 2014 she was nominated Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Paris Vox Musicorum Orchestra.

Pelleg has graduated with distinction from both the Chicago Music College (BA in piano performance), and Indiana School of Music in Bloomington (composition and conducting). Her major conducting teacher was Maestro Henry Mazer, Associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who wrote of her; “Ada Pelleg is certainly the most promising conducting talent today”. She was awarded a conducting fellowship to the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, a scholarship to study with Frederick Prauznitz at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and a fellowship to a master class with Max Rudolph at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She participated in Master classes with the world’s greatest conductors, among them Sergiu Celibidache and Ghenadi Rhozdesvensky.

Pelleg received numerous prizes and awards, among them the First Prize in the Molly Margolis Piano Competition in Chicago as well as other scholarships and distinctions. The Israeli Association of women in Management chose Ada Pelleg as "Woman of the year 2006".

A prolific writer and sought after lecturer Pelleg has published numerous articles in professional publications and has lectured in prestigious institutions, among them  the School of Architecture at the Israel Institute of Technology, the London University SOAS, Middlebury College in Vermont USA, , Haifa University and Indiana University. She has completed a Hebrew translation to Histoire du Soldat by the Swiss Librettist Ferdinand Ramos, set to music by Igor Stravinsky, and conducted a special performance with the participation of actors and players of the Israel Philharmonic.  She wrote an original arrangement of Pink Floyd's Rock Opera The Wall, for a rock band, choir and orchestra which she has conducted in a special production. Her program “Dialogue with God” on Israel “Voice of Music” radio gained great success.

Throughout her career she has worked with and collaborated with composers and performers from all religions and national affiliations and has initiated numerous joint projects and concerts. In 1999, together with Prof’ Aliza Shenhar, former Israel’s Ambassador to Russia, she has directed a multicultural concert in Haifa featuring classical music, music from South America, Middle Eastern Music and instruments and Belly Dancers. In 2000 she has programmed “Improvisation for Flute and Orchestra’ by German/Syrian composer Nuri El-Ruheibany as mandatory composition in the Haifa International flute competition and conducted the concerto in Columbia Festival of the Arts in Maryland.  In 2003 she was invited by British/Lebanese flutist Wissam Boustany to conduct the GMC resident orchestra in a Gala concert “Towards Humanity” in London. In 2006 the Brazilian Composers League commissioned her to record a CD of concerti for flute and orchestra which she did with flutists James Strauss and the GMC resident orchestra. In 2010 she initiated collaboration with the Aramaic Moaronite Church in Gush Halav producing the “Mostly Mozart in the Galilee” series. This collaboration was expanded to the Maronite church in Nazareth. In 2013 she has conducted the inaugural concert at the new Auditorium Stef Wertheimer built in Nazareth industrial Park. The concert was later performed in Jerusalem and broadcasted live all over the world by the European Broadcasting Union.