SPRINGFIELD — Sidney High School Orchestra Director Janet Fu will serve as interim director of the Springfield Youth Chamber Orchestra during the fall semester of the 2018-19 school year.
Fu also directs the Springfield Youth String Ensemble. Both groups are among the Springfield Symphony Orchestra’s youth orchestras program.
Fu will hold the interim position until the spring semester, when Julie Ellis will assume the baton. The Springfield Symphony Orchestra announced Monday, July 9, that Ellis had been named director of the ensemble, effective January 2019.
Fu has been the conductor of the Springfield Youth String Ensemble since 2011, and prior to her position in Sidney, was an elementary and middle school string specialist with Springfield City Schools. She received a Bachelor of Arts in music from Hong Kong Baptist University and a master’s degree in music education from Bowling Green State University. She performs with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and has also performed on both violin and viola with the Lima, Adrian and Perrysburg symphonies. She is a member of the National Association for Music Education, Ohio Music Education Association and American String Teachers Association.
During the 2010-2011 season, Fu served as a sectional coach for the Springfield Youth Orchestras and as coach for the Springfield Youth Chamber Orchestra String Quartet. Under her tutelage, the quartet performed at numerous local events in a variety of settings and rose to an artistic level that warranted their first appearance in a joint recital with the Springfield Youth Symphony String Quartet at Wittenberg University.
A graduate of the Ohio State University and Florida State University, Ellis is in her 10th year of teaching. She is an orchestra director in Worthington City Schools and a clinician and administrator for the Ohio State University String Teacher Workshop. Ellis has also served as a conductor and administrator for the Florida State University Summer Music Camps and orchestra director at New Albany Middle School and New Albany High School in New Albany, Ohio. She volunteers on the Education Committee and Board of Trustees of the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) K-12 Committee and as ASTA member-at-large.
Ellis has presented clinics at national and state conferences and has been invited as a guest conductor, adjudicator, and clinician in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Outside of school, she performs as a cellist in local orchestras and chamber music ensembles.
