 |
James CONLON |
James Conlon, one of classical music’s pre-eminent conductors, has
distinguished himself internationally in a highly diverse repertoire of
operatic, symphonic and choral works. Mr. Conlon has spent the major part
of the last two decades in Europe, where he has served as Principal Conductor
of the Paris National Opera since 1995 as well as General Music Director
of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989-2002), where he was simultaneously
Music Director of the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Opera,
and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (1983-1991). He has been
Music Director of the Cincinnati May Festival, America’s oldest
choral festival, since 1979. Beginning with the 2005 season Mr. Conlon
will become Music Director of the Ravinia Festival.
Since his New York Philharmonic debut in 1974 at the invitation of Pierre
Boulez, Mr. Conlon has appeared with virtually every major North American
and European orchestra. In the United States, he has led the Boston, Chicago
and Pittsburgh Symphonies, the Cleveland, Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras,
the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Washington’s National Symphony
Orchestra. In Europe, he has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Bayerischer
Rundfunk, Dresden Staatskapelle, London Philharmonic, London Symphony
Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre de
Paris, l’Orchestre National de France, Orchestra Sinfonica di Santa
Cecilia, and the Kirov Orchestra, among many others.
Associated for over twenty-five years with the Metropolitan Opera, where
he made his debut in 1976, Mr. Conlon has conducted more than 200 performances
with that company, leading a wide range of works from the Italian, German,
French, Russian and Czech repertoire. He has appeared with many of the
world’s major opera companies, including Teatro alla Scala (Milan),
the Royal Opera at Covent Garden (London), the Lyric Opera of Chicago,
and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence).
This season in the United States Mr. Conlon leads the Cleveland Orchestra,
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic
and the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. He also celebrates his 25th
anniversary as Music Director of the Cincinnati May Festival. Also this
season, Mr. Conlon will conduct concerts featuring the works of Erwin
Schulhoff at Lincoln Center in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington,
DC, as well as at the 92nd St. Y in New York. The concerts are part of
a project, conceived by Mr. Conlon and begun in the 2002-03 season, intended
to raise the consciousness of the public to the significance of the works
of composers whose lives were affected by the Holocaust, a considerable
body of work that represents an important link in the history of twentieth-century
music.
In Europe this season Mr. Conlon conducts five operas at the Paris Opera:
Salome, Die Meistersinger, Der Fliegende Holländer, Otello and Bartók’s
Bluebeard’s Castle in addition to leading a double-bill of Zemlinsky’s
A Florentine Tragedy and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi in Milan at La
Scala. In addition, Mr. Conlon guest conducts the Rotterdam Philharmonic,
the Russian National Symphony Orchestra in Moscow, the Orchestra di Opera
di Bologna, and the Bayerische Rundfunk.
Since the beginning of his tenure with the Paris Opera, Mr. Conlon has
conducted thirty-seven operas, most of them new productions, with a total
of over 335 operatic and symphonic performances. Among the highlights
of the past seven years are four Wagner operas (Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal,
Lohengrin, Der Fliegende Holländer), seven Verdi operas (Les Vêpres
Siciliennes, Falstaff, Don Carlo, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Nabucco, Macbeth),
as well as the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin’s Perelá,
l’Homme de Fumèe, and highly praised new productions of Mussorgsky’s
Boris Godunov, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and
Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann. He led the French premiere of Zemlinsky’s
Der Zwerg, as well as the first Parisian production of Dvorák’s
Rusalka. He also led productions of Peter Grimes, Wozzeck, Der Rosenkavalier,
Turandot, Don Giovanni, Le nozze de Figaro, and the Paris Opera’s
first production of Mussorgsky’s Khovanschina in 75 years.
During his tenure in Cologne, Mr. Conlon conducted 231 performances of
34 operas and more than 230 symphonic concerts, including virtually all
the major works of Wagner, Mahler, Zemlinsky, Beethoven and Berg. In addition,
under his stewardship, the Orchestra has recorded over 20 CDs, several
of which have earned prestigious international awards.
Mr. Conlon is committed to working with young pre-professional musicians
and annually devotes his time through teaching at the Aspen Music Festival
and School and Tanglewood Music Center. Mr. Conlon has been active with
the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition since 1997, where he not
only conducts the final round of the competition, but also initiated a
program through which he leads masterclasses and coaches finalists. His
work in the past two competitions was taped and aired in a special series
on PBS. Mr. Conlon often works with the Juilliard Orchestra and has involved
them in his annual New York concert series celebrating the works of composers
whose lives were affected by the Holocaust. As Music Director of Ravinia
he will be working closely with the Steans Institute for Young Artists
and plans to help expand the festival’s focus on education.
Mr. Conlon has recorded extensively for the EMI, ERATO, Capriccio and
SONY Classical labels. He recently made his first recording for Telarc
of the world premiere of Franz Liszt’s St. Stanislaus oratorio.
A champion of the works of Alexander Zemlinsky, he has made nine recordings
of the composer’s operas and orchestral works with the Gürzenich
Orchestra-Cologne Philharmonic for EMI. Several of these recordings individually
have earned prestigious international awards, and in October 2002, the
series was awarded the 2002 ECHO Classic Award for “Editorial Achievement
of the Year.” Mr. Conlon has also inaugurated a new series of 20th
century works with Capriccio, including the recently released CD and DVD
of the works of Viktor Ullmann which won the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik
(German Record Critics Award for Excellence). His other Capriccio recordings
include the works of Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Dmitri Shostakovich with
violinist Vladimir Spivakov and the Cologne Philharmonic.
During the 2002-03 season, PBS aired “Concerto,” six half-hour
shows hosted by Mr. Conlon. Among his other recent television appearances
on PBS are “Cincinnati May Festival 2000,” as well as “Playing
on the Edge” and “Hearing Ear to Ear with James Conlon,”
two documentaries featuring his work with the finalists of the Van Cliburn
Competition.
A native of New York, James Conlon is a graduate and former faculty member
of The Juilliard School. He made his professional debut in 1971 conducting
Boris Godunov at the Spoleto Festival, and his New York debut the following
year while still a student, leading a Juilliard production of La Bohème
on the recommendation of Maria Callas.
In 1999, Mr. Conlon received the Zemlinsky Prize, awarded only once before,
for his efforts in bringing the composer’s music to international
attention. He was named an Officier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
by the French Government in 1996, and in September 2002, he received France’s
highest distinction – the Légion d’Honneur –
from the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac.