Paul Vermel was appointed Music Director and Conductor of the Northwest Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 1994 concert season. From 1974 to 1994 he served as Music Director of the Champaign–Urbana Symphony, as well as Professor of Music at the University of Illinois, where he was director of the University Symphony Orchestra. Born in Paris, France, he studied conducting with Andre Cluytens and Paul Kletzki, and was a theory student of Maurice Duruflé. Graduating from the Ecole Supéieure de Musique, he received high honors in conducting, piano, organ, and harmony. In 1949 he came to America to study at the Tanglewood Music Festival and the Juilliard School of Music, where he was a student of Jean Morel. In New York, Maestro Vermel was Music Director of the Hudson Valley Symphony, the Doctors’ Orchestra and other orchestras, and made his professional opera debut as assistant conductor of Menotti’s “The Saint of Bleeker Street” on Broadway. Maestro Vermel has been music director of the Fresno Philharmonic, the Portland Symphony in Maine, and the Bloomington–Normal Symphony. His guest conducting engagements included appearances with the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony, L’Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, and numerous regional and community orchestras. In 1999 Maestro Vermel was appointed Music Director of the North Suburban Symphony Orchestra. The maestro was conductor-in-residence and head of the conducting program of the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, where for 14 summers he conducted concerts and taught classes in orchestral conducting. He is active as workshop instructor for the Conductors Guild, and currently teaches privately and at the Conductors Institute at the University of South Carolina each summer. Many of his students are achieving prominence on the podiums of orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. Paul Vermel is married to Carolyn Paulin, assistant to the Executive Director at WFMT Radio, and a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus.