Manuel C. Capote
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. He is currently finishing his Master’s degree 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 Itzakh 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 “DuPre” Stradivarius.
For the past eleven years he has been Band and Orchestra Director at American Heritage School of Boca/Delray as well as Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Youth Orchestras of Palm Beach County.†During 2004-2005 he was the Musical Director of American Heritage’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors”. During 2006-2007 Mr.Capote performed as soloist and clinician at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s “Varga” Celebration and during 2007-2008 he will be conducting American Heritage’s production of “Copacabana”.
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. 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, a senior at American Heritage School.