Murray Sidlin is a noted American conductor and a gifted public speaker and explainer of classical music. He began his professional career at the Baltimore Symphony as Assistant Conductor under Sergiu Commissiona. He also served as Resident Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., for four years under Music Director Antal Dorati. He was Music Director of the New Haven Symphony for 12 seasons, and for eight of those years was also Music Director of the Long Beach Symphony in California. He has also been music director of the Tulsa Philharmonic and the Connecticut Ballet, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Gavelborg Orchestra of Sweden. He has been associated with the Aspen Music Festival for 21 years. There he is resident conductor and Director of Conducting Studies. Until 1994 he was Professor of Music and Director of Conducting Studies at the University of Minnesota. In 1994 he was appointed Resident Conductor of the Oregon Symphony. He frequently participates in the Oregon Festival of American Music and other events primarily in the Northwest of the U.S. One of his Oregon Symphony series is "Nerve Endings," an innovative series designed to expand the traditional role of symphony orchestras. He also conducts pops concerts and young people's series. In his educational programs and otherwise, Sidlin is a committed, involving speaker who reminds commentators of Leonard Bernstein in his ability to put across the essential ideas of music. The Oregonian newspaper called him "a cross between Lenny and Leno." He was the host and conductor of a PBS children's series, "Music Is!," explaining the basic elements of music. The series is now available on VHS cassette tapes. With the composer's approval, he made an arrangement of Aaron Copland's opera The Tender Land for the same chamber orchestra instrumentation selected by Copland for the ballet Appalachian Spring. He has recorded a suite from this arrangement with the Third Angle New Music Ensemble on International Classics label, and the whole opera in his arrangement was also recorded for Koch for release in the Copland centenary celebration. He frequently conducts opera, including acclaimed productions of Britten's Albert Herring and Blitzstein's Regina at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, CT, Prokofiev's Love of Three Oranges at the Indiana University Opera Theater, and the first U.S. staged performance of Szymanowski's 1926 masterpiece King Roger. Remaining with the Oregon Symphony, in 1998 Sidlin also became Music Director of the Nevada Symphony in Las Vegas.