Brazilian-born Marcelo Lehninger is Music Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony since 2016 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Bellingham Festival of Music in 2023. Previously, he was Music Director of the New West Symphony in Los Angeles, for which the League of American Orchestras awarded him the Helen H. Thompson Award for Emerging Music Directors. For five years, Lehninger served as Assistant and then Associate Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a tenure that included many concerts in Boston, Tanglewood and a highly praised debut at Carnegie Hall in 2011.