he 2021-2022 season, Principal Pops Conductor Robert Bernhardt celebrates a remarkable milestone with his 40th anniversary with the Louisville Orchestra. He is concurrently Principal Pops Conductor of the Grand Rapids Symphony (his 7th year) and Music Director Emeritus and Principal Pops Conductor of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera (his 29th year).

Formerly, he was Principal Conductor/Artistic Director of the Rochester Philharmonic, Music Director and Conductor of the Tucson Symphony, Music Director and Conductor of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of Kentucky Opera, Music Director, and Conductor of the Amarillo Symphony, and Artistic Director of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta.

Since 2006, he’s been the conductor of the Symphony Under the Sky Festival with the Edmonton Symphony, and a frequent guest conductor annually on several of their subscription series. He debuted with the Boston Pops in 1992 at John Williams’s invitation and has returned there often.

He’s appeared frequently as a guest conductor with the Baltimore Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Cincinnati Pops, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Santa Barbara Symphony, and many others.

In the world of pops, he has worked with scores of stars from Broadway, Rock & Roll, and the American Songbook: from Brian Stokes Mitchell and Kelli O’Hara, to the Beach Boys and Wynonna, to Jason Alexander and Ben Folds. Because of his extensive experience and lucky upbringing, he has rarely met music he doesn’t love.

On that subject, Bernhardt is a lover of opera and has conducted productions with Kentucky Opera for 18 consecutive seasons, and for 19 seasons with his own company in Chattanooga, as well as many guest conducting engagements with the Nashville Opera.

He received his Masters degree with Honors from the University of Southern California’s School of Music, studying primarily with Daniel Lewis. He received his BA-Fine Arts degree from Union College in Schenectady, NY, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Summa cum laude, and an Academic All-American Baseball Player. He lives with his wife, Nora, in Signal Mountain, Tennessee.

Blaine Alden Krauss is currently starring in Hamilton as the standby for both Hamilton and Burr. He was thrilled to be part of the second season of Pose while appearing in The Cher Show on Broadway. Prior to that he was seen as Lola in Kinky Boots shortly after making his Broadway debut in the smash hit Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. He traveled the world as Simba in The Lion King and starred in the Radio City Summer Spectacular. Krauss regularly performs with symphonies around the globe and is a regular performer at Feinstein's/54 Below. His talents led him in 2011 to be a feature performer for the largest Commemoration of 9/11 outside of the U.S at the Trocadero in Paris, France. In 2010 he was selected to be 1 of 20 Presidential Scholars in the Arts by the White House and Presidential Scholar Commission. This venture led to having met President Obama and concluded with a performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He was selected to be the Feature Vocalist at the 2010 July 4th Celebration at the US National Archives and was a selected participant at the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh Scotland. His theatrical credits include Godspell and Spelling Bee at the West Virginia Public Theatre, Evita, Into the Woods, Civil War, Make Me A Song, Chess, and Jean Valjean in CCM's Les Miserables. Krauss is a proud graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.