Samuel Stapleton, a conductor and violinist who grew up in the Iowa City area, has been tapped to lead the Wartburg Community Orchestra for the 2019-20 season.

Stapleton comes to Wartburg from the Central College Community Orchestra, where he was the orchestra director and conductor for two years.

“I’ve been very impressed with the level of musicians and the structure of the Wartburg Community Symphony Orchestra. It’s a really nice amalgamation of the college and community, and we are able to put out a really remarkable product because of that,” he said.

A healthy dose of sibling rivalry jump-started Stapleton’s interest in music at a young age. His sister, who attended a Suzuki preschool, was offered violin lessons, and Stapleton, not wanting to be outdone by his younger sibling, asked to tag along. This early start led to a passion that landed him a significant scholarship to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he majored in biology, so he could go on to medical school like his father, and in music.

“By my second year I realized I much preferred playing Brahms’ symphonies to studying chemistry, so I dropped the science side of my studies,” he said. “Over the course of my college career I was a good player, but when looking at a career arc, I didn’t see myself in an orchestra. I thought conducting seemed like a more alluring career path, where I could really delve down into analyzing music and getting to the heart of what’s there.”

He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from the UNC-Chapel Hill in 2003, and completed a Master of Fine Arts in violin and Master of Arts in conducting at the University of Iowa in 2009.

Stapleton then spent six years in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., where he helped create the Boston New Music Initiative, a nonprofit resource for local upcoming composers. In 2011, he founded the Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra, a nonprofit that melded innovative cross-art form projects with classical masterworks, introduced newly commissioned music that featured local talent and engaged young audiences in a fresh and unexpected dialogue. He served as the nonprofit’s president, conductor and music director until 2015.

“The last concert I did there was pretty awesome. We had an international call for scores for female composers, and we had over 100 submissions,” he said. “Our final concert was at Harvard University. It was really eclectic. We had everything from an electronic/techno string quartet improvisation to three world premieres.”

He is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Iowa, which he expects to complete in 2020. In addition to his conducting duties, Stapleton will be a visiting assistant professor of music and director of orchestra and upper strings at Wartburg.

The Wartburg Community Symphony Orchestra season begins Saturday, Oct. 12, with a concert called “No Place Like Home” featuring Elizabeth Matera, a Quad Cities clarinetist and former member of The President’s Own Marine Band. Ticket information is available at www.wartburg.edu/symphony.