Pottsgrove Music Teacher Serves as Guest Conductor in NJ

GLASSBORO NJ – A Pottsgrove School District teacher went home last week to southern New Jersey, not only to rediscover his musical roots but also to help 80 students strengthen theirs.

William Einhorn, orchestra director for Pottsgrove’s high and middle schools, served as guest conductor Jan. 5 (2025; Sunday) for a performance held at Rowan University in Glassboro. He led the Junior High String Ensemble Concert sponsored by the South Jersey Band and Orchestra Director’s Association.

The group was comprised of students chosen to play after successfully completing an audition process. Then they and Einhorn – at the time, a stranger to the assembled musicians – spent three days working together to rehearse and master the music they would perform.

Einhorn was selected by the association last October. He says he was “floored when … asked to guest conduct.” In part that’s because South Jersey is his former home, where Einhorn attended area schools and learned his craft as a student musician himself.

“I had amazing music teachers in Southern New Jersey (who) dedicated themselves to making me into the musician I am today,” he notes. Some of those same teachers were on hand when the student musicians and their conductor took to the stage. Attendance by his former mentors made the concert “very special,” Einhorn says.

So too, he adds, did the students under his direction. They “were amazing,” he reports, and happily claims the “concert was a tremendous success.” The orchestra ended its performance with the three-movement “Brook Green Suite,” written in 1933 for strings by English composer Gustav Holst.

Einhorn is no stranger in serving as a guest conductor, having led several other student orchestra concerts by similar invitation during his 15 years at Pottsgrove. Last April he was guest conductor of the PMEA District 10 Elementary Orchestra Festival at Northeast Middle School in Bethlehem PA.

His next opportunity in that role, Einhorn says, arises March 16 (Sunday). That’s when, by invitation, he will conduct the Philadelphia Archdiocese Middle School Orchestra Festival. It’s scheduled to be held at Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast Catholic High School, in Drexel Hill, Delaware County.

Photos provided by William Einhorn to Travels With The Post