Mark Russell Smith, the outgoing music director of the Richmond Symphony, has been named music director of the Quad Cities Symphony, beginning in the 2008-09 season, when he will conduct five
of six concerts in the orchestra's classical series.Smith, who concludes his Richmond tenure next season with pre-Christmas performances of Handel's "Messiah" and spring programs of Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" and Mahler's Ninth Symphony, began last fall as artistic director of orchestral studies at the University of Minnesota and director of new music projects at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
His wife, Ellen Dinwiddie Smith, is a French horn player in the Minnesota Orchestra, and the family resides in Minneapolis.
The Quad Cities Symphony is based in Davenport, IA, and also performs in Moline and Rock Island, IL.