Anthony Parnther

Anthony Parnther is an American conductor, bassoonist, and educator.

In 2019 he was appointed music director and conductor of the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra in San Bernardino, California. He is also the music director of the Southeast Symphony in Los Angeles, California, a position he has held since 2010.

Early life and family
Anthony Parnther was born in Norfolk, Virginia, to Samalauluoloitefu (née Paese), an economist and professor, and George Parnther, an engineer.

Around 1949, George Parnther emigrated to the United States from Kingston, Jamaica and enlisted in the U.S. Navy before serving in the Korean War. George eventually matriculated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with degrees in engineering and mathematics. Samalaulu (abbreviated) emigrated from Samoa in 1960 and studied economics at Columbia University. The Parnther family settled in Norfolk, Virginia in the late 1960s.

Anthony graduated from E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he played the cello, bassoon, and tuba in the instrumental music department.

Education
He studied conducting at Yale University and music performance at Northwestern University.

At Yale University, he studied conducting with Lawrence Leighton Smith and Otto Werner Mueller.

Career
After a two-year international search, the San Bernardino Symphony appointed Anthony Parnther as their Music Director in May 2019.

Parnther currently serves as conductor of the Southeast Symphony in Los Angeles, California.

Previously, he conducted the Orange County Symphony in Anaheim, California and the Inland Valley Symphony (now the Temecula Valley Symphony) in Temecula, California.

He is a noted conductor, orchestrator, and bassoonist with the Hollywood Studio Symphony for television, motion pictures, and video games.

Guest conducting
Anthony has appeared with many of the leading orchestras in North America, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, and the Buffalo Philharmonic.

In 2018, Parnther conducted Chineke! following the 30-month refurbishment of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and again in September 2023 at the BBC Proms.

Film scores
Parnther is a prolific conductor of scoring sessions for motion picture, television, album, and video game scores with the Hollywood Studio Symphony.

He has led the recording sessions for such projects as Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Encanto, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Nope, League of Legends, Creed III, Devotion, Tenet, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, American Dad, Arcane, The Adam Project, Slumberland, The Way Back, Cheaper By The Dozen, Lost City, Little, The Hunt, Turning Red, Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Fargo, The Night Of, 4400, The Lamplighters League, Guild Wars, Oppenheimer, and many more.

Teaching
Anthony directed the Symphonic Band and directed and designed for the Marching Buccaneers and the Men and Women's Basketball Pep Bands at East Tennessee State University from 2004-2007. He taught applied double reeds at Fullerton College from 2008–2010 and served as director of the YMP/YMCO program under the Department of Equity and Inclusion at University of California, Berkeley from 2010–2015. He was Artist-in-residence at the Oakwood School in North Hollywood from 2015–2017.