Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

Maestro Frühbeck returns to the New York Philharmonic for the third time since 2005. A regular guest with North America’s top orchestras Frühbeck will conduct the Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Houston, Montreal, Cincinnati and Houston orchestras in the 2010-11 season. He appears annually at the Tanglewood Music Festival and regularly with the National, Chicago and Toronto symphonies.

Born in Burgos, Spain, in 1933, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos studied violin, piano, music theory and composition at the conservatories in Bilbao and Madrid, and conducting at Munich’s Hochschule für Musik, where he graduated summa cum laude and was awarded the Richard Strauss Prize. He currently is Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Dresden Philharmonic.

Maestro Frühbeck has made extensive tours with such ensembles as the Philharmonia of London, the London Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Madrid, and the Swedish Radio Orchestra. He toured North America with the Vienna Symphony, the Spanish National Orchestra and the Dresden Philharmonic.

Since 1975 he has been a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. The numerous honours and distinctions he has been awarded include the Gold Medal of the City of Vienna, the Bundesverdienstkreutz of the Republic of Austria and Germany, the Gold Medal from the Gustav Mahler International Society, and the Jacinto Guerrero Prize, Spain’s most important musical award, conferred in 1997 by the Queen of Spain. In 1998 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos received the appointment of "Emeritus Conductor" by the Spanish National Orchestra. He has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Navarra in Spain.

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos has recorded extensively for EMI, Decca, Deutsche Gramophone, Spanish Columbia, and Orfeo. Several of his recordings are considered to be classics, including his interpretations of Mendelssohn’s Elijah and St. Paul, Mozart’s Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Bizet’s Carmen, and the complete works of Manual de Falla.