Former Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada is distinguished as a musician by his energy, elegance, and spirit. After a wonderful collaboration with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai in May 2022, Andrés was appointed the new principal conductor of the Rai Orchestra beginning in the 2023-24 Season.
In the 2025-26 Season, he will take up the position of GMD of the city of Cologne and Gürzenich Kapellmeister. Andrés attaches great importance to inspiring all the people of Cologne with music and for music, and to internationally representing and presenting Cologne as a city of music. Already in the coming season, he will be a guest at the Kölner Philharmonie with a special concert.
Debuts and return invitations this season take him to the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Swedish Radio, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Radio Sinfonieorchester Berlin, among others. He will also return to the hr-Sinfonieorchester (principal conductor 2014-21) and to Houston where he served as Music Director from 2014 to 2022.
He will accompany the SWR Symphony Orchestra on a tour of Spain and will also tour with the Filarmonica della Scala. Other highlights include a European tour with his Filarmónica Joven de Colombia and violinist Hilary Hahn, which will take him to Paris, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Dortmund, and Switzerland, among other places.
He will make his debuts at La Scala in Milan (Mozart’s Figaro) and at the Amsterdam Opera (Beethoven’s Fidelio) where he will conduct the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest.
Andrés also returns to the Staatsoper Berlin after numerous successful productions with a repeat performance of Tosca.
Born in Medellín (Colombia), Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his musical education by playing the violin, receiving his first conducting lessons at age 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. Since October 2022, he has been professor of orchestral conducting at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts.