American conductor Jeffrey Grogan is the Education & Community Engagement Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He comes to the Garden State from his most recent post as Director of Orchestras and Associate Professor at the Ithaca College School of Music (New York). In addition to leading Ithaca’s graduate orchestral conducting program, he took the orchestra to its Avery Fisher Hall debut in April of 2005 and led the ensemble in its most recent concert programs in the United Kingdom. Grogan has also performed at Carnegie Hall, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas and Ireland’s National Concert Hall in Dublin.

His humanistic leadership style, coupled with a strong command of skills as a musical communicator, has earned him an impressive reputation as a teacher, lecturer and clinician. He is in demand in these roles with music programs throughout the country. Considering his work with young musicians as one of the cornerstones of his career, Grogan currently continues this commitment with the Greater Newark Youth Orchestra. During his final season with the Ithaca College Orchestras, he worked with several colleagues to present the 2006 Gospel Music Festival. Over one hundred African-American students from the Washington D.C., New York City and Syracuse areas participated. Students worked with two of the leading figures in gospel music, Dr. Diane White from Los Angeles, California and Mr. Glenn Burleigh from Okalahoma City, Okalahoma. Mr. Burleigh had the following to say:

"I've NEVER seen or heard anything like it. A Spiritual Tornado swept through the Ithaca College Campus in Ithaca, New York that flattened the notions that people of many races couldn't sing gospel music together”.

Last season, he led the Indiana University Summer Camps Orchestra, the Michigan Youth Arts Festival Orchestra, the New Jersey All-State Orchestra, and served as clinician for the University of New Mexico, Indiana State University, and public school programs in Indiana, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin. This season, he will appear with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Greater Newark Youth Orchestra, the University of Illinois Orchestra, the Oregon All-State Orchestra, the Texas Region 23 Festival Orchestra, the California All-State Festival Orchestra (Cal-Poly State), among several other engagements nationwide.

Grogan’s dedication to new music manifests itself through recent collaborations with Robert Beaser, Michael Colgrass, Joseph Schwantner, Dana Wilson and Karel Husa. In 2004, the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra commissioned and gave the world premiere of Scott McAllister’s Music from the Redneck Songbook, a work inspired by life in the American south.

Grogan was previously on faculty at the University of Michigan and at Baylor University. He has served as conductor and music director of the Waco Symphony Youth Orchestra, as well as assistant conductor and pre-concert lecturer for the Waco Symphony Orchestra.

Grogan is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University and the University of Michigan.