James Conlon
Music Director
One of today’s preeminent conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. Since his 1974 New York Philharmonic debut, he has been a guest conductor with virtually every major North American and European orchestra and a frequent guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera where he has conducted more than 260 performances.
In addition to being Richard Seaver Music Director of LA Opera, he is music director of both the Ravinia Festival (summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and the Cincinnati May Festival (since 1979). He was principal conductor of the Paris National Opera (1995-2004); general music director of the City of Cologne (1989-2002); and music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (1983-1991).
In an effort to raise public consciousness for the works of composers who were suppressed by the Nazi regime, he has devoted himself to extensive programming of this music in North America and Europe. He regularly programs works of these composers at the Ravinia Festival and through LA Opera’s Recovered Voices project.
He has been honored with the Zemlinsky Prize, the Music Institute of Chicago’s Dushkin Award and the Anti-Defamation League’s Crystal Globe, and he has received honorary doctorates from the Juilliard School, Chapman University and Brandeis University. He was awarded France’s highest distinction, the Lègion d’Honneur, by then-President Jacques Chirac. In 2005 he was one of five recipients of the inaugural Opera News Awards. In 2009, he won two Grammy Awards (Best Classical Recording; Best Opera Album) for LA Opera’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, released on DVD on EuroArts.
His orchestral engagements this season include performances with the San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, Orchestre National de France, NDR Orchestra Hamburg, Russian National Philharmonic, and the Montreal and Toronto Symphonies. This summer, he will conduct La Bohème at the Rome Opera and Tosca at the Ravinia Festival.
