. . . Winter 2003 An
18-year old guitarist finds his calling
Bundit Ungrangsee has gone from last September's co-victory in the Maazel/Vilar Conductors' Competition at Carnegie Hall in New York to a job as assistant conductor for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the very orchestra that inspired him to become a conductor. He was an 18-year-old business student in Bangkok when he attended his first classical musical concert. Zubin Mehta was conducting Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade on tour and Bundit, a Beatles-inspired guitar student at the time, watched in awe and concluded, "This is it! This is what I must be!" His family supported his musical studies at the University of Wollongon in Australia only if he agreed to major in business as preparation for taking over the family's wholesale seafood business. Bundit complied, but after graduation he enrolled at U-M School of Music with his family's support for it had become clear that he had extraordinary musical talent. Ungrangsee probably won't finish his doctoral degree, his conducting professor at U-M, Kenneth Kiesler says. "A few of the very top students get great jobs before they complete their degree requirements. That's what we want to happen. In the professional world, it's how you do it, not whether you have a degree. If you can get a job before the doctorate, take it."
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