orchestral conducting
Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Conducting and Music Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Professor Shimada is also music director and conductor of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, music director and conductor of the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, and principal conductor of the Vienna Modern Masters in Vienna, Austria. Music director of the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 2006, he has also served associate conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Nassau Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra at Rice University.
Professor Shimada has been a frequent guest conductor of the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent engagements include the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Filharmónico de Jalisco (Guadalajara, Mexico), Slovak Philharmonic, Tonkünstler Orchestra (Austria), Orchestre National de Lille, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Prague Chamber Orchestra. He has also been a guest conductor with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, San Jose Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and many other orchestras in the U.S. and Canada.
Maestro Shimada has studied with distinguished conductors Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Herbert Blomstedt, Hans Swarovsky, Sergiu Comissiona, David Whitwell, and Michael Tilson Thomas. He has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Itzhak Perlman, Andre Watts, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Janos Starker, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Nadjia Salerno-Sonnenberg, Cho-Liang Lin, James Galway, and Doc Severinsen. He records with the Naxos, Vienna Modern Masters, Capstone, Albany, and Querstand labels. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Maine College of Art.