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A Maestro’s Odyssey

Merion native David Amado lends full-time vision to the part-time Delaware Symphony.

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David Amado has a fine way with a Steinway. That much is evident from the crystalline progression of notes that often spill from the doorway of his suburban Wilmington, Del., home.

Though impeccably trained, Amado learned long ago that there’s more to musical life than being a concert pianist. For starters, he learned it in the Lower Merion school where he came of age. Now, he lives it as the conductor of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra.

“David played the trumpet,” recalls retired music teacher Leonard Murphy, who led the orchestra and jazz band at Bala Cynwyd Middle School when Amado was a student there.

Years later, after he was invited to a DSO performance by a colleague, Murphy went backstage to greet his former student, but Amado recognized him first. “Oh my God!” cried the maestro, thrilled to see his conductor from the old days.

The podium is indeed the vantage point that Philadelphia-born, Merion-bred Amado prefers, though he began studying piano at age 4, and his instructors included the internationally acclaimed Susan Starr. At some point, he realized that the baton better suited his skills and personality. For one, he likes the social aspects of the job and the collegiality of working with other musicians, as opposed to laboring in isolation. And apparently, the favor has been returned.

“The orchestra members love him—really, really love him,” says DSO board member Nick Cerchio, citing one reason Amado was hired.

Youthful and energetic, the 41-year-old Amado is in his sixth season at the helm of DSO, a part-time orchestra from which he elicits full-blast performances. Typically, members rehearse together for only 10 hours prior to each concert during the September-May season. The seven-concert classical series takes place at Wilmington’s Grand Opera House, as do the youth “Lollipops” and the more pop-oriented “Plugged In” series. Feb. 12-13, Amado and orchestra join Israeli piano virtuoso Alon Goldstein for a celebration of Chopin’s bicentennial. And on Feb. 23, DSO continues its Champagne Chamber Series with an A.I. du Pont Award performance of esteemed composer George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children, sung by Grammy-nominated Tony Arnold.

It’s an ambitious schedule for part-timers—which Amado clearly is not. He selects pieces one year in advance, and 80 percent of it is new to him. “You have to be able to navigate the piece—know where the joints and seams are,” he says.
 

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