Ronald Braunstein

Me2/ launched its flagship orchestra in Burlington, Vermont in September 2011. Three years later, the organization expanded grew to include an orchestra which soon became its central hub. Braunstein serves as Music Director and Conductor of both orchestras. The organization has since expanded with an additional orchestra in Manchester, NH and a Flute Choir in Boston, MA.

Braunstein was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1985. The ups and downs of his career often followed the ecstatic mania and devastating depression associated with this disease. In 2011, he decided to create his own ensemble that would be for people living with mental illnesses and those who support the social mission of fighting stigma.

In 1979, at the age of 23, Braunstein became the first American to win the First Prize Gold Medal in the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in Berlin. He spent several years learning from Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

In 1973 Braunstein began his undergraduate degree at the Juilliard School of Music where he studied composition with Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt. That same year he was awarded the BMI Student Composition Award. He then changed his course of study and graduated from Juilliard with a Bachelor of Music in conducting in 1978.

Ronald Braunstein (born July 27, 1955 in Shirley, Massachusetts) is an American orchestral conductor. He is currently the Music Director and Conductor of Me2/, the world's only classical music organization created for individuals living with mental illnesses and the people who support them. He lives in Malden, Massachusetts with his wife, Caroline.