Andrés Returns

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. 

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.

Ravishing tone, the finest bow arm, a technique far beyond all norms, a sensual and transparent sound, deep insight into each work–this is Augustin Hadelich, one of the greatest violinists of our time. 

As a soloist, he appears with top international orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. 

Augustin, now both an American and German citizen, was born in Italy in 1984 to German parents. He studied with Joel Smirnoff at New York’s Juilliard School. His current standing is the result of a development that is as continuous as it is consistent. Celebrated at the beginning of his career mainly in the United States after winning the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis in 2006, he has since made debuts at all the major festivals in Europe and is now one of the world’s most sought-after soloists. 

In 2016, Augustin was awarded a Grammy Award for his recording of Henri Dutilleux’s violin concerto L’Arbre des songes. Since 2018, he has been an exclusive artist of Warner Classics. Standing out among numerous recordings is his interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (2021), which received an unanimously enthusiastic response from the press. Recuerdos, the most recent release, is dedicated to moments inspired by Spain in concertante works by Britten, Prokofiev, and Sarasate. 

Not only a passionate performer, he is an equally committed teacher, and was appointed to the faculty of the Yale School of Music as professor in 2021. 

Augustin Hadelich plays the Leduc, ex Szeryng violin by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù from 1744, on loan from the Tarisio Trust.