One of today's preeminent conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire, and developed enduring relationships with the world's most prestigious symphony orchestras and opera houses through more than 30 years of conducting.
Mr. Conlon embarked on his inaugural season as Music Director of Los Angeles Opera in September 2006. He is also currently Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and celebrates his 30th season as Music Director of the Cincinnati May Festival, America's oldest choral festival, in 2009. Mr. Conlon has served as Principal Conductor of the Paris National Opera (1995-2004); 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 is continually engaged to guest-conduct the major orchestras and opera houses throughout North America and Europe.
Since his debut with the New York Philharmonic at the invitation of Pierre Boulez in 1974, Mr. Conlon has appeared with virtually every major North American and European orchestra. He has also 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). Associated for more than 30 years with the Metropolitan Opera, where he made his debut in 1976, Mr. Conlon has conducted more than 250 performances there, leading a wide range of works from the Italian, German, French, Russian and Czech repertoire. Having held the longest tenure of any conductor since 1939 at the Paris Opera, Mr. Conlon concluded his nine-year directorship there in July 2004, after conducting 32 operas with a total of more than 357 performances. His leadership is associated with an increase in artistic standards, overall productivity and attendance, which, in an era of diminishing audiences, has increased exponentially in the past decade.
Since beginning his tenure at L.A. Opera, Mr. Conlon has sought to establish a Wagnerian tradition in Los Angeles, leading seven Wagner works over the span of four years. Renowned for his interpretations of the composer's repertoire in Europe, Mr. Conlon will conduct his first Ring cycle in the United States over the next two seasons at L.A. Opera. During the 2008-09 season he will lead the first two installments of the company premiere of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, beginning with Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. He will then conduct the final two installments, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung the following season, culminating in three complete Ring cycles performed in order in 2010.
Also at L.A. Opera, Mr. Conlon will continue his "Recovered Voices" series, a multi-year project during which he brings the music of composers affected by the Nazi regime to the L.A. Opera stage. This season he will conduct the company premiere and new production of Walter Braunfels' The Birds (Die Vögel), which will be performed for only the second time in the U.S. He will also conduct Puccini's Il Trittico directed by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Woody Allen, in his operatic directing debut, and William Friedkin; Robert Wilson's production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly; and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
Mr. Conlon also continues his two-year special artist residency that began in the fall of 2007 at the Juilliard School. Over the span of the residency Mr. Conlon will work with the school's young artists in its three divisions-dance, drama, and music-in an educational project meant to promote growth and historical curiosity in students and audience members alike. The cross-genre project will consist of performances, symposia, master classes, and coaching. This season, as part of the residency, the Juilliard Opera Center presents Trilogy, conceived and conducted by Mr. Conlon. Trilogy comprises three one-act operas based on marriage including Mussorgsky's The Marriage (Zhenitba); Ernst Krenek's, Heavyweight, or The Pride of the Nation, Op. 55 (Schwergewicht oder Die Ehre der Nation); and Veniamin Fleischmann's Rothschild's Violin (Skripka Rotshil'da). Mr. Conlon will also lead the Juilliard Orchestra in the world-premiere performance of a Juilliard-commissioned work by alumna Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
In 2009, Mr. Conlon will lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in four weeks of concerts at the Ravinia Festival, where he has been Music Director since 2005. His guest-conducting engagements during the 2008-09 season include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic in the United States. In Europe he conducts the NDR Sinfonieorchester in Hamburg, Rotterdam Philharmonic (where he was Music Director from 1983-1991), and the National Philharmonic of Russia in Moscow.
In an effort to raise public consciousness to the significance of the lesser known works of two generations of composers who were suppressed, forced to emigrate, or were executed by the Nazi regime, Mr. Conlon has devoted himself to extensive programming of this music in North America and Europe. This includes the works of such composers as Alexander Zemlinsky, Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Kurt Weill, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Karl-Amadeus Hartmann, Erwin Schulhoff, and Ernest Krenek. In addition to "Recovered Voices" at LA Opera, as Music Director of the Ravinia Festival,
each summer Mr. Conlon presents a different composer from this group with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, beginning in 2005 with a production conceived by Mr. Conlon of Viktor Ullman's The Kaiser From Atlantis (written while interned in the concentration camp of Terezin). Since its first showing at The Juilliard School in New York, the work has been reprised at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, the Ravinia Festival, and in cooperation with the New World Symphony, The Houston Grand Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where it was performed in 2004 at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. At the Ravinia Festival, Mr. Conlon has since highlighted the works of Erwin Schulhoff, Alexander Zemlinsky, and most recently, Franz Schreker.
Mr. Conlon is committed to working with young pre-professional musicians and, in addition to his continual work with Juilliard ensembles and his newly launched residency there, has devoted his time to teaching at the Aspen Music Festival and School and Tanglewood Music Center. He is actively involved in the Ravinia Festival's Steans Institute for Young Artists as well as Ravinia's model community outreach and education programs, and plans to help lead and expand educational projects during his tenure at Los Angeles Opera. 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 master classes and coaches finalists. His work in several competitions was taped and aired in a special series on PBS, the most recent of which debuted in spring 2006.
Mr. Conlon has recorded extensively for the EMI, ERATO, Capriccio and SONY Classical labels. He made his first recording for Telarc of the world premiere of Franz Liszt's St. Stanislaus oratorio, released in January 2004. 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 a CD of works by Erwin Schulhoff with the Bayerischer Rundfunk, and a CD/DVD of the works of Viktor Ullmann with the Gürzenich Orchestra, 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. His most recent recording is a CD of works by Bohislav Martinu with the Bayerischer Rundfunk on Capriccio.
In 2008, PBS aired "Shadows in Paradise," a documentary hosted and narrated by Mr. Conlon which tells the stories of German and Austrian composers and writers who fled the Nazi regime, hoping to make a living in Hollywood and the movie industry during the 1930's and 1940's. PBS also aired a series of six shows hosted by Mr. Conlon entitled "Encore" during the spring of 2006, part of an ongoing series of documentaries on his work with the finalists of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which have also included "Playing on the Edge" and "Hearing Ear to Ear with James Conlon." Among his other recent television appearances on PBS are, "Concerto," six half-hour shows hosted by Mr. Conlon, and "Cincinnati May Festival 2000."
In the spring of 2008, Mr. Conlon was awarded the Medal of the American Liszt Society in recognition of his distinctive performances of the composer's works, and Italy's Premio Galileo 2000 Award for his significant contribution to music, art and peace in Florence. In recognition for his efforts in championing the works of composers silenced by the Third Reich, Mr. Conlon received the Crystal Globe Award from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in August 2007. He is one of five first recipients of the annual Opera News Awards, presented in 2005 in recognition of his distinguished achievement in opera. He has been honored by The New York Public Library as a "Library Lion," an annual award given to individuals in recognition of their contributions through their work, and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree by The Juilliard School in 2004. In 1999, Mr. Conlon received the Zemlinsky Prize, awarded only once before, for his efforts in bringing the composer's music to international attention. Mr. Conlon was named an Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1996, and in September 2004 he was promoted to Commander-the highest honor awarded by the Ministry of Culture in France. In September 2002, James Conlon received France's highest distinction from the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac-the Légion d'Honneur.
