Festival Artistic Management

Gary Fry, Festival Artistic Director Email: garyfry@faf.org

The festival is led by Emmy Award winning composer, arranger and choral conductor Gary Fry, who serves as the Festival Artistic Director. Mr. Fry has composed for film, television, live theater, ballet, more than 2500 radio and television commercials, and received a 2006 Emmy Award for his work for Chicago's CBS affiliate WBBM-TV. Significant credits include his position as arranger/composer for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Welcome, Yule! Holiday concerts since 1996, artistic consultant to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for their annual Christmas Celebration concerts, and nearly 100 commissions for Christmas and holiday music from those orchestras and others from around the nation. Gary also has a passion for working with young people, particularly in choral music. Children’s choirs under his direction have performed at the White House, the United Nations, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and Carnegie Hall.

 

Yin-Chu Jou, Festival Manager Email: yinchu@faf.org

New York City-based concert pianist and piano professor Yin-Chu Jou was commended by The New York Times on New Year’s Day 2006: “… Classical pianist Yin-Chu Jou and the Youth Symphony for United Nations… travel and play for peace, to promote world peace through music… to find a way to add a social element to musical performance.” At an early age Yin-Chu earned Westchester Magazine’s “2006 Best New Music Conservatory in Westchester, New York” award for her direction of an up and rising community music conservatory. She was the featured artist during the 40th Anniversary celebration of the United Nations Women’s Guild at the UN Headquarters in New York, where she shared the stage with wife of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon Mrs. Ban Soon-Taek and the active UN Women’s Guild President Tsu-Wei Chang. Since 2005, Yin-Chu has been serving as Artistic Director of Friendship Ambassadors Foundation, Inc. where she organizes and develops all FAF’s music programming worldwide including international music exchanges, some of which involve dance, theater or other related art forms.