Directors
David Arrivée
Originally from Monterey, California, David Arrivée has been fortunate to work with a variety of ensembles as a conductor, pianist, harpsichordist and clarinetist. He is currently the Director of the Cal Poly Symphony and a Professor in the Cal Poly Music Department, where he teaches theory, musicianship, conducting, topics in history and chamber ensembles. For seven years, he also served as the Associate Conductor of Festival Mozaic (previously known as the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival).
With Dr. Scott Glysson, he is co-director of Cal Poly’s annual Bach Week, which brings together faculty, students and guest artists to perform the vocal and instrumental works of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries. He has also conducted Bach cantatas with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra of Trinity Wall Street, New York.
Before moving to the Central Coast, he served as the Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras and the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra, and taught music theory at Northwestern University. He has guest conducted the Prelude Choir (Budapest, Hungary), Charles University Choir (Prague, Czech Republic), Prague Singers, Cantus Novus Wien (Vienna, Austria), Green Lake Festival Orchestra, San Luis Obispo Symphony, Princeton University Orchestra, Auros Ensemble for New Music, Bradley University Orchestra, South Bend Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the Northwestern University Philharmonic.
Arrivée received a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a master of music degree in orchestral conducting from Boston University, where he studied with David Hoose. While in Boston, Arrivée was active as a clarinetist in the Boston University Symphony Orchestra, as a vocal accompanist and as a conductor. He served as the Assistant Conductor of the Boston University Symphony Orchestra and the Marsh Chapel Choir of Boston University, conducted the Auros Ensemble for New Music, and sang with the Cantata Singers.
During a period abroad, Arrivée lived and worked in Leipzig, Germany, where he served as a pianist and sectional conductor for the Schola Cantorum. He moved to Chicago to pursue a doctorate in orchestral conducting at Northwestern University with Victor Yampolsky, and wrote a dissertation on the use of other arts in educational concerts.
He has participated as a conducting fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, as a pianist in the Schumann Duos Program at The Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Study, England, and as a conductor at the International Workshop for Conductors in the Czech Republic. He has studied under Robert Spano, Larry Rachleff, Gustav Meier, Zdenek Macal, Charles Bruck, Victor Yampolsky, David Hoose and Michael Pratt, among others. He lives near the ocean with his wife, Dr. Janet Joichi, and son.
Scott Glysson
Scott Glysson is director of choral activities and vocal studies at Cal Poly. He has been recognized for his achievements in conducting in both the choral and orchestral genres. As the conductor of university, high school and community ensembles, he performs both nationally and internationally. His conducting engagements include the Mozart Requiem with the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra in Bulgaria, the Dan Forrest Requiem with members of the Royal Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland, the Vivaldi Gloria with the Bel Canto Chorus and Nairobi Conservatory Orchestra in Kenya, and the Haydn Te Deum with the New England Symphonic Orchestra in the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York City.
In 2017 Glysson was awarded the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) International Conducting Fellowship to Kenya, and has since served as clinican and co-founder of the bi-annual Nairobi Choral Conducting Workshop. As a graduate student, he was honored as one of eight finalists from across the country to compete in the National Choral Conducting Competition sponsored by the ACDA. Upcoming conducting engagements include the Ralph Vaughan Williams “Dona Nobis Pacem” with the Pan-European Philharmonic Orchestra in Athens, Greece, and the Varna International Opera Academy in Varna, Bulgaria.
Glysson previously served as director of choral activities at West Liberty University in Wheeling, West Virginia. He has also held the position of artistic director and conductor of the Tucson Masterworks Chorale, assistant director of the internationally recognized Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus, assistant conductor of the Reston Chorale and teaching positions at several high schools in the Washington, D.C., area.
An active scholar and educator, Glysson has presented and published in the fields of music education and musicology. In 2011, he was honored by the invitation to present his research on the motets of the medieval composer Guillaume de Machaut at the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Musicological Society. He has published featured articles in The Choral Journal and presented at both state and regional conferences of ACDA and National Association for Music Education in the area of music education. Glysson’s dissertation and current research centers on the choral motets of Camille Saint-Saëns and the 19th-century cecilian movement.
Glysson holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. He also holds a Master of Music in choral conducting from the University of Arizona, and a Bachelor of Music in music education from George Mason University.
San Luis Obispo, California 93407