BIOGRAPHY
In 2021, Matthew Salvaggio founded an orchestra because he didn't want to wait for someone else to program the music he believed in. He leads that orchestra, the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra , and now also serves as Music Director of the Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra, where that same belief shapes a new generation of students.
The Cleveland Repertory Orchestra pairs core symphonic works with the American and historically underrepresented voices most seasons leave out. Music written after 1900 now makes up 69 percent of what the orchestra performs, and its guest artists reflect a broad range of backgrounds and identities. Performances take place across greater Cleveland with free admission, supported annually by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, and the orchestra's audience has grown every season. Cleveland Classical's Stephanie Manning reviewed a program pairing Hanson's Symphony No. 3 with Anna Clyne's This Moment and wrote that Salvaggio's "love for the material was evident." The orchestra has commissioned and premiered new work, including the world premiere of Griffin Candey's Double Aviary for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra in November 2023, and continues to lead commissioning consortia. In April 2026, the orchestra dedicated an entire concert, Legacy of Light: In Tribute to Michael Tilson Thomas and the Spirit of American Music, to the composers CRO has built its identity around. The concert was performed eleven days before MTT's death.
At the Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra, Salvaggio leads a flagship orchestra of 100 musicians and oversees eleven ensembles serving more than 750 students, 84 percent from underrepresented communities. Auditions have climbed 40 percent over three seasons, from 750 to over 1,050, prompting him to launch two new ensembles in 2024–25 and grow enrollment by 160 students. It was the first time the program's upper orchestras reached capacity. Its alumni have gone on to Eastman, Curtis, Juilliard, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Through the Bridges Initiative, launched in fall 2025 with a $200,000 grant from 4Culture's Curiosity Pass program, BYSO now brings free music education to more than 400 students across three school districts and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue.
Salvaggio's early career was spent rebuilding and expanding institutions. At the University Heights Symphonic Band, where he served seven years as Music Director, he eliminated a structural budget deficit and launched the organization's first classical subscription series, growing membership steadily along the way. As Music Director of the Euclid Symphony Orchestra, he expanded the season from four programs to five and founded the Tom Baker Young Artists' Competition; it was there that oboist Joshua Lauretig (Second Oboe, Buffalo Philharmonic), a young competition winner he had mentored years earlier, returned as soloist for the premiere of an oboe concerto as the ensemble came out of the pandemic. At the Erie Junior Philharmonic, he led the organization's 75th anniversary celebration, featuring Alan Baer, Principal Tuba of the New York Philharmonic and an alumnus of the very program he was now leading. Across these years, Salvaggio also began mentoring emerging conductors through an assistant program of his own design.
He is currently one of four finalists for the Music Director position at the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra, where he will guest conduct during the 2026–27 season as part of the search. He made his debut with the Lake Washington Symphony Orchestra in October 2025, and has conducted at Severance Hall in Cleveland and Benaroya Hall in Seattle, working with notable artists like John Rautenberg (former Associate Principal Flute of the Cleveland Orchestra), Ken Johnston (concertmaster, Erie Philharmonic), and John DiCesare (Principal Tuba of the Seattle Symphony), who appeared as soloist on Salvaggio's final graduate conducting recital at Kent State. In 2023, he also conducted saxophonist Drew Hosler in the premiere recording of Robert Gross's Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Nine Instruments, released on Penumbra (New Focus Recordings).
The American symphonic tradition of the twentieth century sits at the center of Salvaggio's artistic practice. He considers composers like Hanson, Creston, and Diamond essential voices that most orchestras have simply stopped playing. Michael Tilson Thomas shaped much of how Salvaggio understands that tradition. He followed MTT's work from a distance for years, then saw him conduct the Cleveland Orchestra several times after his 2021 cancer diagnosis, and traveled to San Francisco in 2025 for MTT’s final concert. The CRO's tribute program the following season grew out of that admiration, conceived with no way of knowing MTT would still be alive to see it performed. He died eleven days later.
Salvaggio is a second-prize winner of The American Prize in Conducting. He has been covered by Cleveland Classical and Erie News Now, and has discussed programming and leadership on the ClassicalQueer, Podium Time, and Everything Band podcasts.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Akron, a background that still shapes how he thinks about orchestras and the communities they serve, and a Master of Music in Conducting from Kent State University, where his teachers included Scott Seaton and Wayne Gorder. He has pursued additional conducting study in symposia with Mallory Thompson, Donald Hunsberger, Kenneth Kiesler, and Craig Kirchhoff, among others.
Updated July 2026