victor muenzer, music director
In 2025, Vic Muenzer was appointed Music Director and Executive Director of a new orchestra, Third Coast Symphony, based in the Chicago area. Third Coast Symphony will perform at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, IL, and in venues primarily on the west and south sides of Chicago. The orchestra plans a robust commissioning program to inspire works written by composers from the communities it serves.
Muenzer is a conductor who served as Music Director of the Park Ridge Civic Orchestra (PRCO)/Discover Symphony from 2012 to 2020. The orchestra was highly praised for its performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Orff’s Carmina Burana. In 2019, the orchestra was proud to give the North American premiere of Kareem Roustom’s Adrift on the Wine-Dark Sea, with clarinet soloist Kinan Azmeh, a member of the Silk Road Ensemble.
Muenzer has been passionate about bringing classical music to young people. He has a long history of creating concerts for kids. In 2003, he created the Imagination Symphony, which debuted at Chicago’s Athenaeum Theater to a sold-out audience of parents and children, receiving rave feedback.
Since 2015, Muenzer has served as the Senior Audio Producer for the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, WY, returning to a role in which he saw much success early in his career. In the 1980s and 90s, he produced over 75 classical symphonic recordings.
Muenzer founded Classic Digital Syndications in 1994 and pioneered the syndication of weekly symphonic radio programs on compact disc, which now uses direct digital delivery. Muenzer has created four national radio series: Indianapolis On-the-Air, Center Stage from Wolf Trap, Concerts from the Library of Congress and Live from the Grand Teton Music Festival.
Updated September 2026