Allen Tinkham is increasingly recognized as one of the most inspiring and exciting conductors and teachers of his generation. He is hailed by the Chicago Tribune as both a conductor and teacher, described as working “wonders” as one of the most important "educators, mentors and inspirational guides in the training of tomorrow's orchestral professionals” and defined by his “communicative” conducting producing “an adrenalin rush of superior playing.”

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Under his leadership as the Music Director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO), both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times have described performances of the top level Symphony Orchestra aged 14-18 as "professional level," and the Chicago Tribune has noted his “impressive” conducting and “uncanny control” and has compared the CYSO Symphony Orchestra's "ferocity and theatricality" to that of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In his nineteenth season at CYSO, Tinkham oversees all artistic programming and faculty and leads the CYSO Symphony Orchestra throughout Chicago each season in performances in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. Tinkham also regularly performs at the University of Chicago's Logan Center, Ravinia Festival, and Millennium Park’s Harris Theater and Grant Park Music Festival.

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In his first season, Tinkham led the Symphony Orchestra in its Carnegie Hall debut and has since led seven international tours to Europe, South America, and Asia. He also conducted the orchestra in its first live broadcast performance and recording release. Today, WFMT regularly records CYSO Symphony Orchestra live performances for broadcast including the critically acclaimed performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

Tinkham recently led the CYSO Symphony Orchestra in the critically acclaimed album released just this year by Cedille Records featuring CYSO alumni Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, and brother Demarre McGill, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s principal flutist, in works for flute, clarinet, and orchestra including the album’s title track, celebrated African-American composer Michael Abels’ Winged Creatures.

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Season highlights with the CYSO Symphony Orchestra include Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 “Organ Symphony,” the Chicago premiere of Zhou Tian Transcend, Augusta Read Thomas’ Of Paradise and Light, and an arrangement of all the symphonic excerpts of Wagner’s The Ring Cycle by Henk de Vlieger, where behind-the-scenes collaborations with Sir Andrew Davis and the Lyric Opera coincide with the Lyric Opera’s The Ring Cycle 2020. 

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This season Tinkham launches CORE (Classical Orchestral Repertory Ensemble), a new CYSO orchestra focusing exclusively on classical and early romantic repertoire and at invitation only by the Music Director. Season highlights with CORE include Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 “Scottish.” Tinkham will also lead CYSO to record Gershwin’s Magic Key for Classical Kids Live!, the first recording by a youth orchestra for the program.

With an extensive repertoire of over 400 performed symphonic works, Allen Tinkham has performed almost all the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky and the major symphonic works of Debussy, Strauss, and Stravinsky and American composers Barber, Copland, and Bernstein. But beyond his passion for the romantic to modern orchestral repertoire, Tinkham is defined as a champion of contemporary music and has conducted over 100 Chicago and world premieres.

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Tinkham has won nine American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers National Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music (ASCAP); he has programmed works from iconic composers such as Phillip Glass, Arvo Pärt, and Pierre Boulez; Pulitzer prize winners David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Bernard Rands; and a next generation of young composers such as Gabriel Prokofiev, Bryce Dessner, and Glenn Kotche. He has conducted world premieres of works of composers such as Augusta Read Thomas.

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Now in his fifth season as Music Director of the Chicago Composers Orchestra (CCO), Chicago Magazine reflected at his appointment on his “well-respected” conducting tenure in Chicago and advocacy for contemporary music. He was recently praised by the Chicago Classical Review for leading the seven-year-old orchestra with the “cohesion of a long-established chamber group.” 

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As a respected music educator, Tinkham has led the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in three Chicago Youth In Music Festivals, numerous All-State Festival Orchestras across the U.S., and summer music festivals including the Oklahoma Arts Institute. Tinkham teaches conducting at Columbia College of Chicago in the MFA program in Music Composition for the Screen, recently one of the top ranked film composition programs by the Hollywood Reporter.

Season highlights with CCO include Chicago and world premieres as well as collaborations with rock jazz big band, Original of Animal, and the percussion ensemble, Beyond This Point. Tinkham will also record a score for an unannounced indie film starring an A-list actor and will guest conduct the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra. Tinkham returns this season to the Chicago Youth In Music Festival and the Oklahoma Arts Institute.

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Versatile in many genres, he has performed rock with Ben Folds and with My Morning Jacket to open for Pearl Jam for over 80,000 at the Lollapalooza Music Festival, and he has conducted performances with the Roosevelt University Conservatory Chorus, Wicker Park Choral Singers, and the Salt Creek Ballet. Tinkham currently sits on the boards of the Illinois Council of Orchestras and the League of America Orchestras Youth Orchestra division. 

For six seasons, Tinkham was the Assistant Conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s pops holiday concerts. Guest conducting engagements have also included the Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. Tinkham has also been a cover conductor for major orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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Open to exploring new avenues to engage the modern audience, Tinkham has performed with the Chicago Bulls, The Second City, and the Blue Man Group. As a speaker, Tinkham was a guest on a panel at SXSB 2018 to discuss how emerging technologies can enlighten the modern concert format, highlighting his recent collaboration for CYSO with Google artist Teek Mach for a virtual reality performance experience to the score of Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island to music teachers of English and Lebanese descent, Tinkham first received music training at home and began the French Horn at age ten and Double Bass at age fourteen. He studied solfege, music theory, and French horn under Nedo Pandolfi. Similarly to others of his generation who also studied with Nedo Pandolfi who now play in major orchestras today such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he attributes his inspiration to become a musician as well as a conductor to his first music mentor.

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Following graduation from the Eastman School of Music with a Double Bachelor of Music (BM) in Music Theory and Performance, Tinkham was the
 youngest recipient of the Helen and Clyde Wu
 Conducting Fellowship at
 the University of Michigan for the Master of Conducting. He also attended the American Academy of Conducting of the Aspen Music Festival. Tinkham’s principal teachers were David Effron, Murry Sidlin, Kenneth Kiesler, David Zinman, and James DePreist.

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He has also received coaching from Gerard Schwarz, Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Gustav Meier, and Jorma Panula and was invited to two international competitions, the Malko Competition and the Sir Georg Solti International Conductors Competition. He has been featured in the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter Preview. Tinkham began his conducting career as an Apprentice Conductor at the Oregon Symphony Orchestra and was appointed Music Director of the CYSO in 2000, the youngest to win the post in its history.  

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