Six leaders from Chapman community listed in OC Metro’s ’40 Under Forty’

A contingent of six rising stars from the Chapman University community were listed in OC Metro’s “40 Under Forty,” the magazine’s annual roster of the county’s most impressive young professionals, including Daniel Alfred Wachs, associate professor in the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music.

Wachs is music director and conductor of the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Chapman Orchestra. Both orchestras were finalists for the 2012 American Prize in Orchestral Performance and OCYSO was the 2012 winner in the youth category.

Most recently, on May 15, Wachs led the combined forces of the Chapman Orchestra, OCYSO, Chapman and UCI Choirs in the season-finale performance of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County’s “Beethoven: The Late Great” year-long celebration at Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. On tap were Beethoven’s mighty Ninth Symphony and the West Coast premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “Frieze.” The Orange County Register’s review raved: “Wachs guided the ensemble with energy, precision, and a welcome sense of clarity and poise. He doesn’t dance. It’s all business: big, broad and direct. You can forgive him for getting swept away on occasion because he brings the orchestra with him …The performance wasn’t just good by standards for younger performers, but forceful and exuberant by any standard: genuinely inspiring, technically proficient, structurally sound.”

Chapman students and alumni also included in the OC Metro “40 Under 40” list were:

• Television/broadcast journalism major Oliver Bogner ’15, head of creative at Bogner Entertainment Inc., has produced several shows that have aired on TLC, A&E and Lifetime.
• Film major Nathan Flanagan-Frankl ’14 created a zippy pitch video that won him a spot on this year’s Team Oscar, a group of six college filmmakers who handed out those coveted golden statuettes to celebrity presenters at the Academy Awards.
• Jon Holmquist ’15 founded Bitcoin Black Friday, which enabled Bitcoin users to raise more than $1 million for charities. The business administration major has been featured as a Bitcoin expert in numerous media outlets.
• Noah McMahon class of ’96, CEO of Anonymous LLC, which connects philanthropists to worthwhile charitable organizations.
• Brian Sanders ’03, senior director of ballpark operations for the Los Angles Angels of Anaheim. Sanders was the shortstop for Chapman University’s national championship team in 2003.
• Daniel Alfred Wachs, associate professor in the College of Performing Arts, and music director and conductor of the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Chapman Orchestra. In May OCYSO presented the West Coast première of a new work by Mark Anthony Turnage at the Renée & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in a performance that included Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

To see the full “40 Under Forty” story, visit OC Metro.