Symphony Concert N° 2

Andrés Orozco-Estrada has been Music Director of the Houston Symphony since the 2014-15 season, and after eight years, the 2021-22 season will be his last as Music Director. Andrés Orozco-Estrada was principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony from September 2014 to July 2021.

Orozco-Estrada regularly conducts Europe's and America's leading orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Orchestre National de France, as well as major U.S. orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also conducted concerts and opera performances at the Berlin State Opera and the Salzburg Festival.

In the 2021-22 season, he tours with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra for the first time in Austria (Graz, Salzburg, Bregenz), Europe (Spain, France, Germany) and Asia (Taiwan, China, Korea). Additionally, he conducts a new production with his orchestra at the Theater an der Wien (Catalani, »La Wally«) and takes the podium at the open-air concert in the Museumsquartier.

Orozco-Estrada is particularly committed to new concert and mediation formats, as well as premieres of young composers. The WSY Talent also celebrated its premiere, in which exceptional musical talents were allowed to work on a solo piece with

orchestral accompaniment and then present it in concert. There will be another WSY Talent in June 2022.
Working with young musicians is very close to his heart, and in 2019 he went on tour in Europe with the Filarmónica Joven de Colombia, of which he has been principal conductor since 2021. Since November 2018, Orozco-Estrada has also been principal conductor of the Freixenet Symphony Orchestra of the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, Spain. He will tour Europe with both orchestras in the 2021-22 season.

His CD releases on the Pentatone label have received much attention: with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, he made recordings of Stravinsky's »Firebird« and »The Rite of Spring«, which were praised by critics as "hauntingly beautiful" (Gramophone). His concert recordings of Richard Strauss's operas »Salome« and »Elektra« have also enjoyed great success. With the Houston Symphony, he released a Dvořák cycle. He has also recorded all Brahms and Mendelssohn symphonies.

Born in Medellín (Colombia), Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his musical education by playing the violin, receiving his first conducting lessons at the age of 15. In 1997 he moved to Vienna, where he was accepted into the conducting class of Uroš Lajovic, a student of the legendary Hans Swarowsky, at the renowned Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. Orozco-Estrada lives in Vienna.

Spanish violinist María Dueñas beguiles audiences with the breathtaking array of colours she draws from her instrument. She has been studying with world-renowned Professor Boris Kuschnir at the Music and Arts University of Vienna for several years. After winning a whole series of international violin competitions, not only did her live-streamed run to victory at the 2021 Menuhin Violin Competition win her the first and audience prize, but also a global online following and the loan of a golden-period Stradivari from Jonathan Moulds’ private collection.

María signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in September 2022 and she has already appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, such as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie and Oslo Philharmonic under Manfred Honeck, the Dresdner Philharmonie and Marek Janowski, the National Orchestra of Russia and Vladimir Spivakov, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Gustavo Gimeno, the Staatskapelle Berlin under Alain Altinoglu, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and Michael Sanderling, the Orchestre de Paris and the Tonhalle Zürich with Paavo Järvi, the Lithuanian National Orchestra and Charles Dutoit or the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with principal conductor Domingo Hindoyan.

Dueñas also made her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at the

Hollywood Bowl in August 2021 and joined them again in May 2022 to give the world premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s violin concerto “Altar de Cuerda,” of which she is the dedicatee, in sold-out concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall and Boston.

Forthcoming highlights in the 2022-2023 season include a tour with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Gustavo Gimeno, with concerts at the Ottawa National Arts Centre, the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Chicago and Carnegie Hall, her debut with Herbert Blomstedt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Richmond Symphony with Valentina Peleggi, invitations from the Detroit Symphony under Jader Bignamini, friendly reencounters with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honeck and her return to the NDR Elbphilharmonie under Alan Gilbert. Chamber music collaborations will bring her to the Vienna Concert Hall with Kian Soltani and Patrick Hahn, on a Japanese concert tour with Pablo Ferrández, Suyoen Kim and Akira Eguchi, to the mythic Wigmore Hall in London with Julien Quentin and to La Grange au Lac Festival with Renaud Capuçon.

As a stipendiary of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, María Dueñas plays the Nicolò Gagliano violin of 17?4 and the Stradivarius “Camposelice” (1710), on generous loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.