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James Conlon, born 1959 in New York City, is considered one of classical music's pre-eminent conductors. He has distinguished himself internationally in a highly diverse repertoire of symphonic, operatic, 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, with 2004 marking his 25th anniversary. Beginning with the 2005 season Mr. Conlon will become Music Director of the Ravinia Festival.
Having held the longest tenure of any conductor since 1939 at the Paris Opera, Mr. Conlon concluded his directorship there in July 2004. Mr. Conlon's 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. He has conducted 32 operas with a total of over 357 performances there.
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 there, 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).
In an effort to raise public consciousness to the significance of works of composers whose lives were affected by the Holocaust, Mr. Conlon has devoted himself to the programming of this music with as many American and European orchestras as possible. This includes the works of such composers as Alexander von Zemlinsky, Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Bohuslav Martinu, Erich Korngold, Karl-Amadeus Hartmann and Erwin Schulhoff.
Among the highlights of James Conlon's past decade at the Paris Opera 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), the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's Perel´, 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 Dvořák'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 to 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, 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 the recently released 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.
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.
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