Riots & Scandals Festival: Stravinsky Rite of Spring + Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto

Conductor Juraj Valčuha is recognized for his effortless expressiveness and depth of musicianship. With sharp baton technique and natural stage presence, the impressive ease of his interpretations translate even the most complex scores into immersive experiences. His profound understanding of composer and score, taste, and naturally elegant style make him one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation.

Since 2016 Valčuha has been 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.

The 2005–06 season marked the start of his international career with exciting concerts 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 United States with the Pittsburgh Symphony. His Italian debut took place at Teatro Comunale in Bologna with a sensational production of La Bohème.

He has since led the Berlin Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, hr Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Vienna Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia London, Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Milan’s Filarmonica della Scala, Montréal Symphony, and NHK and Yomiuri orchestras in Tokyo. His active career in the U.S. has taken him to the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Utah. He enjoys regular collaborations with orchestras in Houston, Minnesota, New York, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.

International touring with the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI took them to the Musikverein in Vienna and the Philharmonie in Berlin, as well as Cologne, Düsseldorf, Zurich, Basel, and Munich, and to the Enesco Festival in Bucharest, and to Abu Dhabi Classics. He has also toured with the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin to Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn to mark the 100th anniversary of the Baltic nations.

Valčuha champions the compositions of living composers and aims to program contemporary pieces in most of his concerts. He has conducted world premieres including Christopher Rouses´s Supplica with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Steven Mackey’s violin concerto with Leila Josefowicz and the BBC Symphony in Manchester, and Nico Muhly´s Bright Idea with the Houston Symphony. In 2005 he conducted, in the presence of the composer, Steve Reich´s Four Sections at the Melos-Ethos Festival in Bratislava. Other composers he has supported and continues to follow with interest are Bryce Dessner, Andrew Norman, Luca Francesconi, James MacMillan, and Steven Stucky, among others.

On the opera stage, he has conducted Madama Butterfly, Elisir d‘amore, and Marriage of Figaro at the Bavarian State Opera Munich; Elektra and Turandot at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Faust and The Love for three oranges in Florence; Jenufa, Peter Grimes, Salome, Tristan und Isolde, and Ariadne auf Naxos in Bologna; Peter Grimes in Venice; and Elektra, Carmen, Bluebeard’s Castle, Die Walküre, The Girl of the Golden West, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Katja Kabanova, and Pique Dame in Napoli.

Juraj Valčuha was awarded the Premio Abbiati 2018 from Italian Music critics in the category Best Conductor.

His engagements in the 2022–23 season will  take him to the Houston, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco Orchestras, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell´Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and the Orchestre National de France.  He will conduct Verdi´s Don Carlo at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and La Boheme and Tristan & Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera Munich.

Born in Bratislava, Slovakia, he studied composition and conducting in his birth place, then at the Conservatory in St Petersburg (with Ilya Musin), and, finally, at the Conservatoire Supérieur de la Musique in Paris.

jurajvalcuha.com

Conrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer and has been dubbed “the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music” by New York Magazine. He has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, among others.  

As a composer, Conrad’s work has been performed by orchestras throughout the world. His first large scale orchestral work, Everything Must Go, received its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic and its European premiere with the Antwerp Symphony. He received a 2019 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for Outstanding Sound Design/Music Composition for his work on More Forever, in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher.  

He is the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a Gilmore Young Artist—an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. 

In the 2022-23 Season, among other notable performances, Conrad performs Mozart with the New York Philharmonic and curates a program for their Artist Spotlight series. He returns to the San Francisco Symphony both as a soloist in Gershwin’s Concerto in F major and as a curator for their Soundbox series. He debuts with the National Symphony Orchestra.  

In the fall, Conrad collaborated with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra to curate and lead a program of music by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Gesualdo, CPE Bach, Feldman, and Mozart. Other collaborations include ongoing performances of Counterpoint and performances of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Orchestra of St Luke’s. The season also includes a multi-city tour with the Junction Trio. 

A Warner Classics recording artist, Conrad’s debut disc Voyages was declared a “spiky debut” by The New Yorker. His next album, Pictures, was hailed by The New York Times. His third album, American Rage, featuring works by Julia Wolfe, Frederic Rzewski, and Aaron Copland, was released in 2019. In 2021, Tao and brass quartet The Westerlies released Bricolage.  

Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1994. He has studied piano with Emilio del Rosario and Yoheved Kaplinsky, and composition with Christopher Theofanidis.