Leonard Atherton, professor of music, joined the School of Music Faculty in 1982. He is the Music Director Emeritus of the Muncie Symphony Orchestra and former director of the Ball State University Orchestra.
Atherton is an Associate of the Royal College of Music and a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music. He holds a doctoral equivalency from Ball State University and the Master of Arts degree from Oxford University. He held the Holroyd Music Scholarship at Keble College, Oxford University, and studied conducting on scholarship at Tanglewood Music Center. He received the Ricordi Prize for conducting at the Guildhall School of Music. With the Watney-Sargent Award, Atherton spent a year observing the Philadelphia Orchestra and visited professional music organizations in the U.S.
Atherton has held music director positions with New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Niagara Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Young Artists Choral Program of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
He was music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Bolivia and was director of the University of Pennsylvania Choruses. He has recorded with the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and has been guest conductor with Canadian orchestras in Victoria, Kingston, Saskatoon and Toronto. He also has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Atherton made his debut in Japan conducting Strauss Die Fledermaus with the Sakai Opera Company, Osaka, and led concerts with the Opera House Orchestra of the Osaka College of Music and the Century Orchestra of Osaka. He has guest conducted the UANL orchestra of Monterry, Mexico and returned to the Guildhall School of Music to conduct its orchestra. He has conducted in Taiwan with the Taipei Metropolitan Orchestra and given conducting masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music. His textbook is available in Taiwan. Recent guest conducting has taken him to the Old Dominion University Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Bolivia.
Maestro Atherton has served on many occasions as the Cover Conductor for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
Former President of the Indiana Orchestra Consortium, he has served on many adjudication and other panels for the Indiana Arts Commission, the Ontario Federation of Symphony Orchestras, and others.