This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.

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MAESTRO JOHN NELSON IS SUFFERING FROM PNEUMONIA, AND THIS PHYSICIANS HAVE ADVISED AGAINST AIR TRAVEL

GLEN ELLYN, Ill., March 9, 2016 — The Chicago Bach Project regretfully announces that, due to illness, conductor John Nelson is unable to direct the Friday, March 11, 2016, performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

Delta David Gier, the Chicago Bach Project’s assistant conductor, is stepping into John Nelson’s place. Mr. Gier has been Music Director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra since 2004. During that period, the orchestra has been lauded for its programming (including seven ASCAP awards). His series based on the Pulitzer Prize was called “an unprecedented programming innovation” by The Wall Street Journal.

Gier has also conducted the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra. Last season he conducted the American Composers Orchestra in the inaugural concert of the China-U.S Composers Project; this season will include engagements with several Chinese orchestras and master classes at the Shanghai Conservatory.

In Europe, his engagements include the Bergen Philharmonic (Norway), the Polish National Radio Symphony (with which he has several recordings), and the Bucharest Philharmonic, along with many other orchestras in Italy, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey. In the Americas, he has had a long relationship with the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica and has conducted several orchestras in Mexico, including the Orquesta de Camera de Bellas Artes. In Asia, Mr. Gier’s engagements have included the Singapore Symphony and the Thailand Philharmonic, where he will return three times this season.

For 15 seasons, Delta David Gier served as an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. He studied at the University of Michigan under the renowned conducting teacher Gustav Meier, along with studies at the Tanglewood Music Center and Aspen Music Festival. He was a Fulbright scholar in eastern Europe from 1988-90. Also in demand as an educator, Mr. Gier has served as guest faculty at the Curtis Institute, Yale School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory, and SUNY Stony Brook. He has chaired the music jury of the Pulitzer Prize and is a frequent panelist for the League of American Orchestras.

“Our thoughts are with John Nelson, and we hope for a rapid, thorough recovery. We are very pleased that someone of Maestro Gier’s consummate skill is able to step in and lead this Bach concert,” says SDG Music Foundation President and CEO, Joseph A. LoSchiavo, “and to bring Maestro Nelson’s vision for this great sacred choral-orchestral work to fruition.”