The Atlanta Ballet Orchestra

Photo by Charlie McCullers.

Dan Allcott, Conductor

Dan was Music Director and principal conductor of the Atlanta Ballet from 2000-2006. In addition to traditional ballet scores, he led musical collaborations with the Indigo Girls, the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Choir, the Red Clay Ramblers, the Michael O'Neal Singers and the Atlanta Youth Choirs. His work is enthusiastically received by orchestras, composers and choreographers. He has work with choreographers Violette Verdy, Jacques Cesbron, Victoria Simon, Stanton Welch, John McFall, and Michael Pink and premiered new works by Christopher Hampson, Margo Sappington, Diane Coburn-Bruning, Christian Holder and many others. His most recent ballet premier was “Primary Movements” — a collaboration between the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Black Dance Theater.

He attributes his love of conducting ballet to Violette Verdy, for whom he first conducted ballet at Indiana University where he underwent his formal conducting studies with Thomas Baldner and Imre Pallo. Atlanta Ballet has performed his original arrangements of Carmen, Hamlet, and Shed Your Skin.

In the fall 1996 Allcott was appointed the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's Schmitt Conducting Fellow, a position he held for three years. In 1998, Mr. Allcott was named the first Herbert von Karajan Fellow of the American Austrian Foundation at the Salzburg Festival and has been a participant in the Nicolai Malko and Grzegorz Fitelberg competitions in Europe. Allcott is the Music Director of the Bryan Symphony Orchestra in Tennessee and is Associate Professor and Director of Orchestral Studies at Tennessee Tech University.

Atlanta Journal Constitution Reviews:

Under Dan Allcott's direction, the orchestra continues to sound healthier every year.
—March 2005

Fitting Martinu's score to a jazzy, nervy T, Hampson's moves buzz with sass and energy... Kudos to music director Dan Allcott's snappy, rhythmic command in the pit. —October 2005

Dan Allcott deserves major credit for metamorphosing the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra into the respectable pit band it has become. —December 2005

The Orchestra: