The Greenville Symphony Orchestra has appointed Lee Mills as its music director following a wide-ranging three-year search.
Mills, who has conducted such prestigious orchestras as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, succeeds Edvard Tchivzhel, who led the Greenville Symphony for almost a quarter of a century.
Mills, 37, becomes only the sixth person to hold the title of music director in the orchestra’s 76-year history. He signed a four-year contract that will secure his artistic leadership through the spring of 2028.
“I’m honored and excited to step into the role of music director of the Greenville Symphony Orchestra,” Mills said. “Greenville’s welcoming community immediately drew me in when I came as a guest conductor, and the symphony’s mission-driven approach to bringing people together through the performing arts is exactly what I want to be a part of.”
As music director, Mills will be responsible for conducting the orchestra, ensuring its artistic excellence and growth, planning the season, and maintaining a high profile as the public face of the orchestra.
Audiences can expect an emphasis on the classics along with newer pieces or neglected works from the past, Mills said in a recent interview. Part of the orchestra’s 2024-25 season was scheduled before his appointment, but Mills has already planned the rest of the season.
In designing the upcoming season, Mills sought to capture the hope and can-do spirit he perceived in Greenville, he said.
“My impression when I first stepped into downtown Greenville is that the city is growing and has a vivacious energy,” Mills said. “There’s a lot of goodwill and optimism in the community and I think this season really reflects the community. We have a delightful season full of inspiring, fresh, invigorating music.”
The orchestra’s Concert Hall series opens at the Peace Center in October with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and concludes in May 2025 with the German composer’s Sixth Symphony, subtitled “Pastoral.” Works by familiar classical composers such as Bach, Grieg, Mozart and Schumann will share space with such contemporary composers as Mason Bates, Jessie Montgomery and João Guilherme Ripper.
The classics “are as valid and moving today as they were when they were originally composed, but at the same time we do need to be pushing the boundaries and finding new ways to connect and celebrate new repertoire whether it’s music from today or a great piece that was lost to history,” Mills said. “Going forward there’ll be a huge variety of music on our stage.”
Next season’s full list of concerts can be viewed at greenvillesymphony.org.
Mills was appointed music director after an extensive process led by a search committee and involving input from the orchestra’s board of directors, the orchestra’s musicians, and Peace Center audiences.
The six finalists for the position each led a Masterworks program last season. Mills conducted November performances of works by Philip Glass and Schumann.
“From the moment Lee arrived in town for his concert in November, his enthusiasm for Greenville, his chemistry with the orchestra, and his unique program of music both traditional and brand new inspired us all,” said Jessica Satava, the orchestra’s executive director. “He brings a depth of musical insight paired with contagious joyful energy.”
Mills lives in Palm Springs, California, where he leads the presenting organization, Palm Springs Friends of Philharmonic. But Greenville will be his second home, he said.
“I am overjoyed to welcome a new leader to Greenville,” said Cathy Jones, president of the Greenville Symphony’s board and vice president of quality in design and manufacturing at Michelin. “Lee Mills possesses profound talent, creativity, commitment to community, and a clear and compelling artistic vision for our orchestra. After a three-year-process and 160 applicants, it was clear that Lee is the right person to build on the Greenville Symphony’s foundation of artistic excellence and help shape the future of our symphony.”
Mills, a five-time winner of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, has led concerts with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, among others.
In the fall of 2022, Mills was the Solti Foundation U.S. Resident at Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he worked with maestro Enrique Mazzola on the Lyric’s production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos.”
The League of American Orchestras selected Mills for the 2018 Bruno Walter National Conductors Preview where he conducted the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and in 2017 Mills was selected as a semi-finalist in both the Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition and the Opera Royal de Wallonie-Liege International Opera Conducting Competition. In addition, he conducted alongside David Robertson in the highly acclaimed U.S. Premiere of John Cage’s “Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras” with the Saint Louis Symphony.
At the invitation of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop, he received the prestigious BSO-Peabody Institute Conducting Fellowship in 2011. Under the tutelage of Gustav Meier and Marin Alsop, Mills received his Graduate Performance Diploma and Artist’s Diploma in Orchestral Conducting at the Peabody Institute.
This story was filed as part of an editorial partnership between South Carolina Public Radio and the Greenville Journal, which is responsible for its content. You can learn more about the Greenville Journal here.