Dr. Christian Wilhjelm, Conductor and Music Director of the Ridgewood Concert Band since its founding in 1983,
has been praised by critics “for his classical conducting technique."
From 2000-2005 Dr. Wilhjelm was the Music Director of the legendary Goldman Band in New York.
He served as the director of the New York University Wind Ensemble during the 2006-2007 school
year presenting three premiere performances. His other conducting appearances include the
Norwalk Symphony (Connecticut), the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, the Allentown Band, the New Jersey
Wind Symphony and Wind Ensemble, the Virginia Wind Symphony, and student honor bands in several states.
He also served as the interim director of bands at Montclair State University from 1994-1996.
Since December 2000 he has conducted the annual Tuba Christmas with host Harvey Phillips in
Rockefeller Center. This event, which features up to 500 tuba and euphonium players, is the second longest
running holiday event in Rockefeller Center (second only to the annual tree lighting). Dr. Wilhjelm has
also enjoyed a 31 year career as a public school music teacher. For the past 24 years, he has been the
band director at Pascack Hills High School in Montvale.
As a professional musician, Dr. Wilhjelm has performed the French horn with the Boston Symphony,
the Boston Pops and, as a principal, with the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Boston Opera Orchestra
and the Richmond Symphony. He spent three summers performing in the Fellowship Orchestra at Tanglewood
where he received the distinction of being named a Leonard Bernstein Fellow. Dr. Wilhjelm has performed
with great conductors including Leonard Bernstein, Sir Colin Davis, Arthur Fiedler, William Steinberg,
and Sejii Ozawa. He has also performed with many leading jazz and popular musicians including: Benny Carter,
Art Farmer, Isaac Hayes, Rufus Reid, Sonny Rollins, Henry Mancini and Dionne Warwick.
Dr. Wilhjelm is proud to feature the music of contemporaries Patrick Burns, David Gillingham, John Mackey,
David Sampson, Joan Tower, Joseph Turrin, Michael Valenti, Johan de Meij, and Eric Whitacre as well as the
great composers long associated with the Goldman Band including Percy Grainger, Erik Leidzen, Robert Russell
Bennett, John Philip Sousa, and Edwin Franko Goldman. He travels extensively promoting wind bands and band music.
Dr. Wilhjelm has taken the band on critically acclaimed tours of Central Europe (1998), the French Riviera
(2003), China (2008), and Brazil (2009). With the RCB he has produced two compact discs: “Organic Band”
with organist David Fedor, and “Celebrations” featuring the music of composer Michael Valenti. An additional
CD featuring pianist Ron Levy and the music of Stravinsky, Milhaud, and Poulenc is currently in production.
Dr. Wilhjelm graduated from the New England Conservatory where he studied with Harry Shapiro of the Boston
Symphony. He was the principal hornist with the Conservatory Symphony Orchestra under the direction of
Gunther Schuller and the Conservatory Wind Ensemble under the direction of Frank Battisti. He received a
Master of Music degree from The College of New Jersey and a Doctor of Education degree from Teachers'
College, Columbia University. Dr. Wilhjelm continues to perform professionally as a hornist with the
Colonial Symphony Orchestra, the New Philharmonic of New Jersey, and with the brass quintet in residence
at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ.
Dr. Wilhjelm resides in New Jersey with his wife, Jacqueline Sarracco, Director of Bands at Ramapo High
School in Franklin Lakes, NJ and their four children
Dr. Wilhjelm may be reached at cwilhjelm@msn.com.