Andrés Orozco-Estrada
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.
