Orlo Gilbert, conductor of the symphony orchestra and professor of music at Southern Adventist University for 31 years, retired in 2000 after 39 years of teaching. He began his career as band and orchestra director at San Diego Academy in 1961, teaching there for two years before accepting a position at Shenandoah Valley Academy in Virginia. In 1967 Gilbert was invited to teach at Collegedale Academy in Tennessee where he also taught as an adjunct teacher at nearby Southern Missionary College (now Southern Adventist University). In 1969, SMC hired him as full-time orchestra director and teacher in strings.

A violinist and student of Alfred Walters during his undergraduate study at La Sierra College, Gilbert was one of the first Adventist string teachers to recognize the value of the Suzuki approach, sought to learn all he could about it, and then implemented it in his teaching. When he began his work at SMC, he inherited a string program that had been in decline. Within a decade the program was flourishing, with a large and accomplished orchestra.

An extensive and successful tour to the Orient in 1979 set the stage for what would become the largest and one of the most successful orchestras in the circle of Adventist colleges and universities. In the next two decades they would take ten more world tours and play in Carnegie Hall. During this past year, Gilbert’s final season conducting the orchestra, they performed ten different programs in twenty-nine concerts.

A 1961 graduate of La Sierra College, Gilbert pursued graduate study at the University of Minnesota and James Madison University in Virginia. He completed a master’s degree at JMU in 1967 and, in 1997 was granted the first honorary doctor’s degree by newly renamed Southern Adventist University, in recognition for his work with the orchestra. He was also honored at the Chattanooga Symphony's final concert of the 1999-2000 season for his 33 years as a violinist in the orchestra.

Gilbert and his wife, Ellen retired to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, where they operate the Riverside Place Resort, a family owned business developed many years ago by Ellen’s parents. Orlo and Ellen have been operating it during the summers for 22 years. He now pursues his interest in rebuilding and showing antique cars and is available as guest conductor and clinician for string and conducting workshops.

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