With the musicians of the Festival City Symphony, Music Director, Carter Simmons is most grateful to bring beautiful music to the lives of our wonderful Milwaukee community where he also serves as Artistic and Music Director of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra. For 30 years, Simmons’ leadership has been sought nationally and throughout our region where he regularly conducts for the Milwaukee Ballet having also conducted the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, artists of the Florentine Opera, and the Wisconsin Philharmonic among other regional orchestras. Simmons has toured throughout Europe, in South America, and China, also leading performances in Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall and in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. In 2023, Simmons will lead MYSO’s international concert tour of Belgium and The Netherlands including a performance in Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw.

In 2015, in recognition of its innovative Community Partnership Programs, MYSO, which directly serves one thousand musicians, received the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from President Obama’s Council on the Arts and Humanities. Mr. Simmons has served on the Education and Community Engagement Committee of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and is a Past President of the Board of Directors of Milwaukee’s Civic Music Association who later named Simmons a Distinguished Professional in the Arts.

Born outside Washington, D.C., Mr. Simmons’ training included participation at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Eastern Music Festival, and lessons at the Tanglewood Music Center. A finalist of the National Conducting Institute of the National Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Simmons also participated in seminars conducting the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Eastman Wind Ensemble. He attended classes of Elizabeth A. H. Green, John Downey, Leon Fleischer, Gustav Meier and Frederick Fennell among others, and is most grateful to his teachers Dr. John R. Locke, Robert Gutter, Larry Rachleff, and Professor Thomas L. Dvorak.