Manuel C. Capote
Music Director and Conductor, Philharmonic Orchestra
Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County
Manuel Capote has pursued musical studies at Northwestern University, the Aspen Music Festival School, and the University of Miami from where he holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Performance. In September, 2009 he will receive a Master of Music degree in Music Education from Boston University. His teachers have included Ingus Naruns, Dudley Powers, Frank Miller, and most recently, Laszlo Varga. He has studied chamber music with members of the Cleveland and American String Quartets.
As a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival, Manuel has performed with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Aspen Chamber Symphony with whom he toured the United States, including concerts at the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. He has worked with such diverse artists as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Mstislav Rostropovich, James Galway, Luciano Pavarotti, Leonard Slatkin, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett. He has recorded with the original Miami String Quartet (on the Audiophile label), with the Florida Philharmonic on the Harmonia Mundi label, as well as with such popular artists as the Miami Sound Machine, Julio Iglesias, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Mr. Capote has taught cello and chamber music at the New World School of †the Arts and Miami Dade Community College. For 19 years, Manuel was Principal Cellist with the Florida Grand Opera and the Florida Philharmonic. With the latter he performed the Florida premiere of Robert Ward’s Dialogues for violin and cello.
Most recently he has served as Principal Cellist of the Boca Pops and Miami City Ballet Orchestras. He has performed chamber music in the United States as well as Austria, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland. Manuel performs on a Horacio Pineiro Cello. The instrument is an exact copy of the 1673 “Du Pre / Harrell” Stradivarius.
Manuel is Band and Orchestra Director at American Heritage School of Boca/Delray as well as Music Director of the Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County and Conductor of its Philharmonic Orchestra. He has conducted American Heritage’s productions of “Little Shop of Horrors”, “Copacabana”, and “Beauty and the Beast”. During 2006-2007 Mr. Capote performed as soloist and clinician at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s “Varga” Celebration.
He has been an adjudicator for Brevard County’s String Solo and Ensemble Festival as well as for Miami-Dade County’s Middle and High School Orchestras’ MPA. He has conducted Lee County’s All-County Middle and High School Orchestras as well as Broward County’s Silver Honors Orchestra. In the summer of 2009 Mr. Capote served on the faculty at the University of Miami’s Honors Chamber Music Summer Camp program. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras’ Youth Orchestra Division. Manuel resides in Boca Raton with his son Nicholas, who is a Film, Video and New Media student at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In August of 2010, Manuel joined Lynn University's Conservatory of Music as Administrative Assistant to Dr. Jon Robertson, Dean.