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Maestro John Zoltek has been Music Director of the Glacier Symphony and Chorale for over twenty years. He is the creator and Founding Music Director of Festival Amadeus, the GSC’s summer classical music festival.

Before his arrival in the Flathead Valley, Zoltek earned degrees from University of British Columbia and Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied both classical and jazz composition and graduated with honors. After graduating, he conducted orchestras around the world, including the National Latvian Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonic Bohuslav Martinu, Vancouver CBC Orchestra, Orchestra Now, Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra, Vancouver Pro Musica Orchestra and the Altoona Symphony. He also conducted the Orquesta Sinfonica de Guayaquil in Ecuador, and was the Music Director of the Renton Youth Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to his conducting work, Zoltek composes music that has been performed in the US, Canada, Europe and South America. Closer to home, his piece “By Dreaming Water” was recently premiered by Tim Fain during Festival Amadeus in Whitefish. Zoltek also composed “Going to the Sun (Fanfare for Orchestra),” which premiered in 2010, for 100th anniversary of Glacier Park.

Micah Hunter serves as the conductor of the Glacier Chorale and the Glacier Chamber Singers. In addition to his work with the GSC, Micah is also a full time music teacher at Stillwater Christian School in Kalispell, where he has served since 2006 as the Director of Choirs and elementary general music teacher in addition to teaching a college-preparatory course called Music Theory, History, and Literature, private voice lessons, and developing and supervising various independent study and online courses in music. Micah is also the chairperson of the annual Stillwater Music Festival; an invitational music festival for school and home school bands, choirs, orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists from Montana, Idaho, and Washington. His choirs are regularly seen performing throughout the community in addition to their regular concert schedules. Micah also works at Flathead Lake Music Camp every summer as a choir director and voice teacher. Micah and his wife Rachel are active in music leadership in their church, and share a passion for the health and vitality of sacred music in the Christian tradition. Together, they operate a ministry to local churches which offers training in music theory, history, philosophy, and practice to church musicians, clergy, and lay people.

Micah grew up in Hot Springs, Montana and attended college at Montana State University in Bozeman, studying voice and conducting primarily under Lowell Hickman. He also studied conducting under Lisa Hunter and served as assistant conductor of the University Chorus under Jon Harney. Micah graduated in 2006 with the Bachelor of Music Education degree. Micah’s graduate school experience has been widely varied, combining online, distance, and residential summer work from Boston University, Pensacola Theological Seminary, and Canyon College, where he earned the Master of Arts degree in music education in 2007. His research focused on cadential function and its relationship to harmony and voice leading in the unaccompanied choral works of Eric Whitacre. Micah entered the Doctor of Sacred Music degree program at the Graduate Theological Foundation in Indiana in 2008, graduating with distinction in 2011 under the mentorship of Brian Taylor. Micah also holds the Master of Church Music in choral conducting from Pensacola Theological Seminary.

Ron Osterbauer began as the Director of Operations and Development for the Glacier Symphony on February 27th, 2019, relocating from Minnesota to Montana.  He brings over 40 years of non-profit experience which has included positions as CEO, Executive Director and Development Director for various nonprofit organizations in Minnesota. He started with nonprofits in the environmental education area and launched the nonprofit River Bend Nature Center as its first Executive Director in Faribault, Minnesota on a 500-acre parcel of land.  He then worked at The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota where he led the efforts to launch national education programs with birds of prey through a partnership with Target as well as a national program to use satellite telemetry to track migrational patterns of osprey through the support of Canon USA.  The Raptor Center was the first organization to have a live bald eagle ride in the 2000 Rosebowl Parade on the Target float, featuring Amy Grant, with Ron handling the eagle! Ron has also worked for nonprofits in human services, restorative justice, integrative health and medicine as well as nonprofits providing legal services to low-income families.   Ron has also been an adjunct professor for two Minnesota Universities teaching course on Minnesota Wildflowers and Budgets and Finance. Ron and his wife Peggy are relocating to the Flathead Valley to be near to their daughter Maggie, son-in-law Cooper and granddaughter Emma.  In his spare time Ron enjoys spending time in the outdoors fishing, hiking and doing bird banding as he is a federally licensed Master Bird Bander.

Laura Welch (Kraft), the Patron Services Manager, moved to the Flathead Valley in the fall of 2018 with her husband. Raised in a historic camp in the beautiful Adirondack mountains of New York, she has always had a passion for culturally-rich and outdoor-loving communities, hence the move to this area. Music has been a constant in her life since childhood, thanks to her musical family. She grew up playing the French horn, attended a music camp as a teenager, and recently helped her husband bring his drum invention to market. She also loves to sing and is learning to play the ukulele. Laura comes to the Glacier Symphony with a background in museum exhibit development and anthropology. She is very excited to make the Flathead Valley her long-term home, meet the members of the community, and work with such a great organization. Interested in volunteering? Email or call Laura to learn more and sign up!

Susan joined the symphony in 2015 and now ensures that the daily operations of Glacier Symphony run smoothly. Delivering outstanding customer service has always been an essential part of her daily work. She maintains our ticketing and donor database, business partnership program and provides box office training. As the GS Office Manager, she is responsible for all office procedures, and uses her organizational skills to ensure smooth operations in a busy work environment. Susan says she regularly finds herself drawing on her entrepreneurial skills and her background in public works, accounting and meeting planning. She feels an organization can never grow too big to not know each client personally. With her over 25 years of experience in professional office executive assistant positions and a track record of strong performance in high-volume, high-pressure environments, Susan skillfully manages administrative duties and client relations

• Teresa Connell | Reception/Box Office
• Alice Cabell | Outreach Coordinator
• Roger Blair | Stage Manager
• Griffin Browne | Orchestra Personnel Manager and Librarian
• Barbara Walden | Chorale Librarian
• Heather Catlett | Chorale Personnel Manager