juraj-valcuha

Juraj Valčuha

Conductor Juraj Valčuha is recognized for the effortless expressiveness and the depth of his musicianship. With a sharp baton technique and a natural stage presence, it is the impressive ease of his interpretations that translate even the most complex scores into immersive experiences. 

Since June 2022 Valčuha is Music Director of the Houston Symphony. He is also Music Director of the  Teatro di San Carlo, Naples and First Guest Conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. He was Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai from 2009 to 2016.

2005/2006 marked the start of his international career on the podium of the Orchestre National de France followed by remarkable debuts in the U.K. with the Philharmonia London, in Germany with the Munich Philharmonic, and in the U.S. with the Pittsburgh Symphony and in Italy with Puccini´s La Boheme in Bologna.

He has since led the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Orchestra dell´Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome and Milan´s Filarmonica della Scala, Montréal Symphony, NHK and Yomiuri orchestras Tokyo.

In the USA he enjoys regular collaborations with the Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony.

International touring with the Orchestra Sinfonica della Rai took them to the Musikverein in Vienna and Philharmonie in Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Zurich, Munich, to the Enesco Festival in Bucarest and the Abu Dhabi Classics. With the Konzerthausorchester Berlin he visited Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Baltic nations.

In Europe he is acclaimed on the podium of the Munich Philharmonic, the NDR Hamburg and hr Frankfurt Radio orchestras, the Vienna Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, BBC Symphony and Philharmonia London.

His engagements in the 2022/2023 season will  take him to the Houston, Pittsburgh and San Francisco Orchestras and the Orchestra dell´Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.   He will conduct Verdi´s Don Carlo at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, La Boheme and Tristan & Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera Munich. 

Juraj Valcuha champions the compositions of living composers and is aiming to programm contemporary pieces in most of his concerts. With the Pittsburgh Symphony he premiered Christopher Rouses´s “Supplica”. With the BBC Symphony in Manchester he led the first performance of Steven Mackey´s violin concerto with Leila Josefowitz. 

In 2005 he conducted, in the presence of the composer Steve Reich´s Four Sections, at the Melos-Ethos Festival in Bratislava. Some other composers he is interested in are Brice Dessner, Steven Stucky, Andrew Dorman, James MacMillan, Luca Francesconi among others.

Engagements in the 2022-23 season will take him to the orchestras in Houston, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, in Rome ad Berlin. He will conduct Verdi´s Don Carlo in Napoli, Tristan und Isolde at the Bavarian Opera Munich. 

Born in Bratislava Slovakia, he studied composition and conducting in his birth place, then in St Petersburg (with Ilya Musin) as well as in Paris.