Special Guest Conductor Dirk Hillyer,

Leads May Concert

Dr. Dirk Hillyer, guest conductor, will finish out our 62nd MVPO Season with “Broadway’s Best” concert with music from the stage, including Overture to Candide and selections from Chicago, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Hamilton, and Mamma Mia!

Timberlane senior Isabella Phair will perform If I Loved You from Carousel, and the audience will experience Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances.

Dr. Hillyer is a highly-recognized figure on Boston’s North Shore who, also, performs nationally as musician/conductor/horn player/mentor. Varied experiences from the classical genre to “pops” music of Broadway and Film led to Hillyer’s activity as conductor for Disney’s DISNEY-INCONCERT which has taken him on two national tours. He has conducted the Austin Symphony, members of the Dallas Symphony in this Disney extravaganza, twice the National Symphony Pops at Wolftrap Performing Arts Center, Miami Pops and Philly Pops in the Kimmel Center. Additional dates included Florida, Virginia, Connecticut, and many Massachusetts cities.

Jazz and Rock play a significant part in Dirk’s make-up: he frequently performs and has
recorded with the Jazz Composers Alliance at Berklee College of Music and performed the
2013 Prague Jazz Fest that toured throughout the Czech Republic and southern Germany. In
2015 and 2016, Hillyer took the baton for DISNEY-IN-CONCERT engagements featuring all
the classics, including “Frozen”, “Lion King”, Mary Poppins and many others.

The Merrimack Valley Philharmonic
Orchestra welcomes Lily Apolloni as our
Concertmaster

The Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra welcomes Lily Apolloni as our
Concertmaster for this final concert of the 62nd Season. As a graduate of St. Olaf College in
Northfield, MN, with Bachelor of Music in Instrumental Music Education, Lily toured and
performed around the US and in Argentina and Uruguay with the St. Olaf Orchestra,
collaborated on a multidisciplinary art project, and conducted her own orchestra. Later, she graduated with a Masters of Music in Violin Performance, from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where she regularly performed with professional ensemble The Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, presented a paper to the International Committee of Music Semiotics in Romania, and wrote and premiered her own Violin Concerto. These days, in addition to classroom teaching, Lily is enjoying freelancing as a violinist in the greater Boston area, teaching privately, and playing chamber music with friends.
Lily brings her bright, eager, and dedicated leadership to the MVPO in this “Broadway’s
Best” performance under the baton of Dr. Dirk Hillyer. As a Music Teacher and Upper
School Advisor in her fourth year at The Sage School in Foxborough, MA, Lily’s virtuosity
strengthens the MVPO and provides a new dimension in musical leadership which will
benefit both the MVPO and, hopefully, encourage her Sage School students and others to
become future members of this fine ensemble.