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Robert Spano


Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano is recognized internationally as one of the brightest and most imaginative conductors of his generation. A gifted musician, Mr. Spano has enriched and expanded the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s repertoire through his characteristically innovative programming. Mr. Spano is also credited with elevating the Brooklyn Philharmonic to new levels of international prominence during his tenure as Music Director from 1996-2004. In addition to these prestigious posts, Mr. Spano was appointed Director of the 2003 and 2004 Festivals of Contemporary Music at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Music Center. In this position, he was responsible for artistic programming and conducted many of the works performed during the Festival. In 2003, he led the acclaimed world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's chamber opera Ainadamar, a co-production of the Tanglewood Music Center, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Highlights of the 2004 festival included the world premiere of Michael Gandolfi’s Impressions From ‘The Garden of Cosmic Speculation,’ and under water, a short piano piece composed by Spano that pays homage to early 20th century French music as well as works by Berio, Lindberg, Zappa, Barber, Carter and Saariaho, among others. Mr. Spano’s other recent achievements include two 2003 Grammy Awards (“Best Classical Album” and “Best Choral Album”) for Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, recorded for Telarc with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Mr. Spano has conducted nearly every major North American orchestra, including the symphonies of Boston, Chicago, Houston, Montreal, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis and Toronto, the Cleveland, Minnesota and Philadelphia Orchestras, Washington’s National Symphony and the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics. An equally accomplished operatic conductor, he has appeared with the opera companies of Chicago, Houston, Seattle and Santa Fe. Overseas he has led the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala (Milan), the Czech Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Radio Sinfonie Orchestra, the Residentie Orchestra (The Hague), the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the New Japan Philharmonic (Tokyo) and the Tonhalle Orchester (Zurich), and has conducted the Royal Opera at Covent Garden and the Welsh National Opera.

In 2004-2005 Robert Spano launches the 60th anniversary season of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and his fourth year as Music Director with pianist Lang Lang performing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, and later in the season conducts a program featuring two world premieres commissioned by the ASO: David Del Tredici’s Paul Revere’s Ride and a piece by Christopher Theofanidis. This program also features John Adams’s Transmigration of Souls, which contemplates the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Additional season highlights include performances of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe by the ASO and Chorus, Golijov's Oceana featuring Brazilian Grammy-award nominated vocalist Luciana Souza, and Tan Dun’s Concerto for Water Percussion. In August 2005, Mr. Spano travels to the Seattle Opera to conduct three cycles of Wagner’s monumental Der Ring des Nibelungen featuring an internationally acclaimed cast, including Jane Eaglen.

In addition to his commitments this season with the Atlanta Symphony and Seattle Opera, Spano conducts the world premiere of Yehudi Wyner’s work for piano and orchestra with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Three Screaming Popes with the San Francisco Symphony. In May he returns to the Brooklyn Philharmonic to conduct “An American in Brooklyn”: a program wholly devoted to the Brooklyn-born composer George Gershwin, featuring selections from Porgy & Bess, American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue. In Europe, Mr. Spano makes his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducting the world premiere of Diderik Wagenaar’s Tango-Waltz on a program including Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Insomnia and Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade.

Under his direction, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Mr. Spano have made a series of critically acclaimed recordings for the Telarc label. Their first, which featured Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, was described in ClassicsToday.com as “the best rendition of the work to come around in years. I can’t imagine a more distinguished or musically appealing first release from this exciting new partnership.” His next recording with the Orchestra, released in July 2002, features the aforementioned Grammy-winning Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, and was recorded in Telarc’s new Super Audio Compact Disc format (SACD). In reviewing the Vaughan Williams disc, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported “Spano's recording of A Sea Symphony is exhilarating, charged with energy, enthusiasm and a youthful, almost reckless sense of daring…[His] clear and bold interpretation personifies the message of exuberant youth.” Also available is the highly praised Rainbow Body, a disc featuring works by 20th and 21st century contemporary American composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Jennifer Higdon and Christopher Theofanidis. Reviewing this album, Amazon.com remarked that “Spano excels and the disc is a winner.” Robert Spano has also recorded a disc featuring the music of Jennifer Higdon, which was released in the spring of 2004. His recording of Berlioz’s Requiem, his fifth with the ASO for Telarc, was released in August of 2004 to strong reviews.

This impressive and growing discography is only one facet of the fertile period of growth, artistic achievement and innovation that has characterized his tenure as Music Director, which began in the fall of 2001. In May 2004, Maestro Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus traveled to Carnegie Hall, where they gave a celebrated performance of Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony and works by Debussy and Knussen; this marked their first appearance in New York and led quickly to an invitation to return there in 2006. A proponent of contemporary works, Mr. Spano has reinstated regular performances of 20th and 21st century repertoire including Jennifer Higdon’s City Scape, which is the ASO’s first commission in six years, as well as world premieres of ASO-commissioned works. Since Spano’s arrival, the orchestra lays claim to increased single ticket and subscription sales while its number of donors has risen more than 40 percent. Mr. Spano maintains a strong community presence by appearing in recitals and chamber music with the ASO musicians throughout the Atlanta community.

During his nine year tenure with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Mr. Spano was credited with bringing that ensemble to international attention. “Robert Spano’s innovative programming has turned the Brooklyn Philharmonic from a respected ensemble in an outer borough into an essential contributor to the cultural life of greater New York.” (The New York Times). Thematic programming and special projects included Thomas Ades’s Powder Her Face, Osvaldo Golijov’s St. Mark’s Passion, John Adams’s Nixon in China and Death of Klinghoffer, world premieres by Michael Hersh, Bright Sheng, Phillip Glass and Christopher Theofanides and more than 40 New York premiere performances.

Despite his demanding performance schedule, Robert Spano remains committed to music education. He was head of the prestigious Conducting Fellowship Program at the Tanglewood Music Center from 1998-2002, has served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute and Bowling Green State University, and is Associate Professor of Conducting at Oberlin Conservatory. He also appears frequently at the Aspen Music Festival.

An accomplished pianist, Robert Spano performs chamber music with many of his colleagues from the Atlanta Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Oberlin Conservatory. Born in Conneaut, Ohio, and raised in Elkhart, Indiana, he grew up in a musical family, composing and playing flute, violin and piano. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied conducting with Robert Baustian, and continued his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with the late Max Rudolf. Robert Spano has been featured on CBS’s Late Night with David Letterman, CBS Sunday Morning, A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts and PBS’s City Arts. Mr. Spano makes his home in Atlanta.