About the Philharmonic

Paul Lustig Dunkel, Music Director and Conductor of the Westchester Philharmonic since its founding in 1983, continues his multi-faceted career as conductor, flutist, arranger and writer. He has led the Westchester Philharmonic to national prominence for the excellence of its performance and for its innovations in programming, education and community engagement.

Prominent in contemporary music circles, Mr. Dunkel’s achievements as a creator and founder of musical institutions and as an advocate for American composers were noted by ASCAP in 2002 in ceremonies at Lincoln Center honoring him and his co-founders for their contributions to American music in establishing and building the American Composer Orchestra(ACO) based in Carnegie Hall. 

His support of contemporary composers and performers has been prominent in his tenure with the Westchester Philharmonic where he has performed and recorded the works of many Westchester composers as well championing the work of the leading composers of our time. Having worked with some of the pre-eminent composers, performers and institutions of 20th century American music, and with the leading figures or our time, he brings his vast knowledge of performers and repertoire to bear in his distinctive programming. His work with the Westchester Philharmonic has been recognized by the American Symphony Orchestra League, the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP), the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts and the Westchester Arts Council. He also is the recipient of the American Symphony Orchestra’s Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award, a Grammy nomination, awards from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund, Harriet Ditson Fund, New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Silver Jubilee Award for outstanding alumni from Queens College and many regional and local awards for his work in the community

Maestro Dunkel’s great ear for talent brought national recognition to him and the orchestra when a work commissioned by the Philharmonic in recognition of his achievements as Music Director,  the Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion by Westchester composer Melinda Wagner, won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in composition. Premiered in 1998 by the Westchester Philharmonic and repeated in Carnegie Hall and in venues around the country with Mr. Dunkel as soloist, the work was released on Bridge Records in 2000.  In the 2004-05 season Mr. Dunkel and the orchestra premiered Tamar Muskal’s The Yellow Wind, an ambitious work for full orchestra, combining Hebrew, Arabic and English texts, traditional folk instruments, and poetry, prose and voice featuringWNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer as narrator, vocalists Keren Hadar and Mira Awadand Bassam Saba playing the Arabic flute.  In the 2005-06 season, the orchestra presented the east coast premiere of Harold Meltzer’s Likes and Unlikes composed for prize-winning bassoonist Peter Kolkay, student of Westchester Philharmonic principal bassoonist Frank Morelli.

As part of his role as a champion of American music, Paul Dunkel serves, along with pianist Michael Boriskin, Artistic and Executive Director of Copland House, as co-founder of Music from Copland House, a chamber music ensemble dedicated to the advocacy of American music. Based at the longtime home of Aaron Copland in Cortlandt Manor, critics have dubbed the ensemble “the paramount keeper of Copland’s flame”.

Beyond his work on the podium, Maestro Dunkel is strongly committed to education.  He led the development of the orchestra’s nationally-recognized Education Program, a multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary, curriculum-based, year-long activity that serves over 7,000 children each year. Dunkel and the orchestra were the recipients of the 2000 Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming for excellence and innovation in music education from ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League. Exploring New Worlds: Music of the Americas and its ground-breaking program of commissioning of new work by a young composer by students was featured on “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS, and recognized by the Westchester Arts Council with a 2001 Award.

The depth and range of Dunkel’s talents and experience have taken him around the world and into all aspects of a life in music. He recently participated in a 50^th anniversary celebration of the American Cantorial tradition at the 92^nd St. Y, the American Composer’s Orchestra and Music from Japan at Carnegie Hall. He has been Music Director of the Denver Chamber Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Vermont Mozart Festival, and has appeared as guest conductor with the Denver, Baltimore, Buffalo, New Jersey, Oakland, Syracuse, Richmond, and American Symphonies, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, at the Kremlin and in Taiwan. He has conducted with the Washington Opera and led a New York City revival of his Four Saints in Three Acts at the invitation of composer Virgil Thomson. He has been involved extensively in the dance world, appearing with many companies here and abroad and with the New York City Ballet Orchestra. His recordings for Bridge, Nonesuch, Summit, CRI and New World Records have received wide critical acclaim, and his recording of The Early Music of Elliott Carter was selected as one of the Top 10 recordings of the year by Time and Newsweek.

A published writer, accomplished speaker and commentator, he presents seminars, master classes and performances at major institutions across the country including The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Yale and Indiana University.

The son of a Viennese pianist, Johanna Lustig, and a Russian scenic designer, Eugene Dunkel, Paul Lustig Dunkel grew up in New York City and attended the High School of Music and Art.  His primary flute teacher and most important musical influence was Robert DiDomenica; he also studied flute with William Kincaid (renowned first-chair player of the Philadelphia Orchestra) and Samuel Baron, and participated in master classes with Jean Pierre Rampal.  Mr. Dunkel began his conducting career as a fellow with the National Orchestral Association under Leon Barzin, and with Erich Leinsdorf and Kresimir Sipusch at the Aspen Music Festival. He was the Founder and Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic-sponsored OrChEsTrA of New York created under the U.S. government’s CETA program, and served as Music Director of the White Plains (NY) Symphony.