Conductors and Administrative Personnel
Dr. Robert Sage, CSO and CYSO Music Director
Robert Sage is Music Director of the Claremont Symphony Orchestra and the Claremont Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has been a member of CSO for over 35 years as both piano soloist and Conductor, during which time he has performed a substantial portion of the piano concerto and symphonic literature. Dr. Sage's Master's and Doctoral degrees in Piano Performance were both taken at the University of Southern California, under the tutelage of Lillian Steuber. He also studied with Harry Datyner, of the Geneva (Switzerland) Conservatory, and has taken master classes in conducting under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt and David Willcocks.
Dr. Ruth Charloff, CSO Associate Conductor
Ruth Charloff is conductor of the UCR Orchestra and UCR Chamber Singers at the University of California, Riverside. Her D.M.A. in Orchestral Conducting is from Northwestern University, and her M.A. in musicology is from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Charloff co-founded and conducted the chamber orchestra Hesperian Ensemble in Berkeley, conducted productions of Death in Venice and The Lighthouse with the Berkeley Contemporary Opera, and conducted the West Coast première of the opera Esperanza with the Sinfonia Mexicana. At UC Riverside she teaches instrumental and choral conducting, instrumentation, 20th-century music history, and Introduction to Western Music, and actively promotes new works and interdisciplinary performance projects.
Gloria Cangahuala, CSO Executive Director
Gloria Cangahuala has been a violinist with CSO since 2001 and Concertmaster since 2009. A lifelong musician, she began studying both piano and violin at the age of four. She received a B.S. in Information Technology and a Minor in Music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ms. Cangahuala worked as an IT consultant and marketing executive before turning her focus entirely to music. She was Executive Director of the Claremont Youth Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2020, and has soloed twice as pianist with CSO. She currently works in administration for the Claremont Community School of Music and is pianist, violinist, and cantor at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Claremont.
