Nan Washburn, Artistic Director & Principal Conductor 
Celebration Youth Symphony and Celebration Flute Choir

Conductor and music educator, Nan Harrison Washburn is beginning her 11th season as the dynamic and highly acclaimed Music Director of the Plymouth Canton Symphony Orchestras. She is thrilled to begin her first year as the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Celebration Youth Orchestras, the organization she founded in 2003. In addition to her passion for music education for all ages, she brings to CYO many years of experience conducting youth, university and professional orchestras across the country.

On the teaching front she has been on the faculty of San Francisco State University, The Conductors Institute at Bard College, New England Conservatory Extension Division, Cazadero Music and Arts Center, San Francisco Community Music Center and the East Bay Center for Performing Arts. Some of the many youth and college orchestras she has conducted include the University of Michigan Philharmonia Orchestra, Acalanes High School Chamber Orchestra, California and Colorado All-State Festival Orchestras, San Domenico School Orchestra da Camera along with numerous other middle and high school festival orchestras.

Nan’s past professional music director positions include the West Hollywood Orchestra, Orchestra Sonoma, Camellia Symphony, Channel Islands Symphony and the American Jazz Theater. Her guest conducting includes symphony orchestras of Richmond (VA), Sacramento, Wyoming, Eugene, Berkeley (CA), Marin, Cheyenne, Dubuque, Perrysburg, Firelands (OH), Stockton, Napa Valley and the El Dorado Opera Company in Los Angeles.

Since Nan's arrival in Plymouth in 1999, the PCSO has not only garnered 4 ASCAP Awards (she has received a total of 17), but it has grown from a community orchestra into a highly respected fully professional ensemble. Nan expanded the organization further by creating 4 new ensembles: Orchestra Canton, the now 3-tiered Celebration Youth Orchestra, the Celebration Flute Choir and, most recently, the Studio Orchestra created to record PCSO’s newly released commercial CD for children, Magical Tunes & Marvelous Tales. The PCSO education programs also have grown under her leadership. The CLASSical Music outreach program has expanded to include the Wayne-Westland Schools. With the creation of our Instrumentorship Program, hundreds of young instrumentalists have had the opportunity to be coached and to play "side-by-side" with our professional orchestras.

Nan studied flute performance at the prestigious Music Academy of the West, received her Bachelors of Music with Highest Honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara and her Masters of Music from the New England Conservatory in Boston. She later studied conducting at the Conductors Institute with Harold Farberman and at the Aspen Music Festival.

Hektor Qyteti, Conductor 
Celebration Sinfonia and Celebration Strings

As an accomplished professional violinist, Hektor Qyteti has been the Associate Concertmaster for the Plymouth Symphony and Orchestra Canton for the past five years.  He is also the Assistant Concertmaster of the Grosse Pointe Symphony plays in the violin section of numerous other Detroit Metro area orchestras including symphonies in Dearborn, Warren, Rochester and Pontiac.  Prior to his moving with his family to the U.S., he had a five-year tenure as Concertmaster of Korce Philharmonia Orchestra in Albania during which time he performed as soloist on the Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and other major concertos.

A dedicated teacher, Hektor maintains a busy schedule teaching violin and chamber music as a private instructor, and he is also on the faculty of Steppingstone School for the Gifted in Farmington, Jerry Luck Studios and Evola Music Center.  For 10 years in Albania, he was the Music Director of the Board of Education at the prestigious Korce Tefta Tashko K-12 and High School, essentially the equivalent of magnet/pre-conservatory schools in the U.S.

He received a Performance and Teaching degree from the Academy of Arts in Albania and later continued with advanced studies in teaching at Oakland University.

Jane Libbing, CYO Manager

A long time resident of Plymouth, Jane has been actively involved in many areas of the community. After receiving degrees from Chatham College and Eastern Michigan University, she taught for 32 years in Northville, Plymouth-Canton and Wayne-Westland. In 2004, the Plymouth Canton Symphony Society hired her as their Education Coordinator to administer the Musical Outreach to the Schools program and manage the Celebration Youth Orchestras.