Born in Montreal, Maestro Cohen is a musician and composer as well as a music director.   Cohen studied piano with his father Philip Cohen and performed frequently as a solo pianist in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  As the Music Director for the Kumu Kahua Theatre Group, which specialized in locally themed productions he composed music for numerous theatre productions, including ones based on the life of Princess Ka’iulani.  After spending some time studying in England, he returned to Hawaii and conducted the Hawaii Chamber Orchestra.  He was appointed Music Director of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in Tucson in 1996, a position he held until 2005.  He has studied conducting with Gustav Meier and Paul Vermel and is currently the Music Director of the Scottsdale-based MusicaNova.
 

Maestro Cohen’s talent and inventiveness as both a composer and conductor has been recognized with 7 ASCAP awards for original composition and an award for Adventurous Programming. 
  Maestro Cohen lives in Cave Creek with his wife, soprano Carolyn Whitaker, and their nine year old son, Graham.

  Cal Stewart Kellogg  first conducted the Symphony of the Southwest in 2005 after completing a six year collaboration with the Arizona Opera.  Beginning his career in the symphonic concert hall, he has performed with such orchestras as the Antwerp Philharmonic, Monte Carlo Symphony, Israel Sinfonietta and in Italy with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the radio orchestras of Rome, Naples and Turin.  In North America, he has conducted the Baltimore Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony, Seattle Symphony, New World Symphony, Orchestra of Illinois, Philharmonic Orchestra of Florida and at the Spoleto Festival, U.S.A.  He served as Music Director of the Virginia Chamber Orchestra from 1993-1998.
 
  Mr. Kellogg attained international attention as the first-prize winner of the Gino Marinuzzi Conducting Competition and as a co-winner of the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition.  He made his operatic debut with the Rome Opera Leading a production of Nino Rota’s Aladino e la Lampada Magica and New York City Opera debut conducting Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Saint of Bleeker Street, both at the request of the composers.  The Menotti opera was featured on the PBS series Live from Lincoln Center.  He earned a diploma in conducting from the Conservatorio di Musica S. Cecilia in Rome under the guidance of the legendary Franco Ferrara, and also earned diplomas in composition and bassoon.  Mr. Kellogg lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife Jamie and their sons Mark and Sean.