Howard Goldstein has been a member of SASO’s first violin section since 2024 and was appointed Assistant Conductor in 2025. He holds the title Emeritus Professor of Music at Auburn University, where he conducted the university orchestra and taught music history from 1992-2018. During that time he was also a member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra as well as their Assistant Conductor. In 2009 Dr. Goldstein held Auburn University’s Breeden Eminent Chair in the Humanities and in 2011 he and the Auburn orchestra won American Prizes for Orchestral Performance and Music Education.
Dr. Goldstein has guest conducted professional and student orchestras in Bulgaria, Czechia, and Hungary, toured the United States as a violinist with Tango Orchestra Club Atlanta, and written for the BBC Music Magazine as their North American critic. He was a violin student of Alexander Treger at UCLA, and served as teaching assistant to Frederik Prausnitz at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he received masters and doctoral degrees in orchestral conducting. Additionally, he studied conducting at the Salzburg Mozarteum Sommerakademie with Milan Horvat and the Conductors’ Institute with Harold Farberman. Television appearances include the CBS series The Equalizer and the game show Jeopardy!, where he was a two-time winner. Current hobbies are tennis, swimming, and photography.