Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Maestro

An engaging orchestral conductor, award-winning pianist, and passionate educator, Gonzalo Farias is the Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony. In an ever-changing world, Gonzalo’s desire is to establish music-making as a way of rethinking our place in society by cultivating respect, trust, and cooperation among all people in our community.

Gonzalo Farias served previously as the Associate Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, the Associate Conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony, the Assistant Conductor of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Conducting Fellow at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Praised by his “clear, engaging” style “with a lyrical, almost Zen-like quality”, Farias has been established “as a focused, musical artist who knows what he wants and how to get it – with grace and substance.” As former Music Director of the Joliet Symphony Orchestra, Farias embraced the city of Joliet and its Hispanic residents of the greater Chicago area with pre-concert lectures, Latin-based repertoire, and a unique side-by-side bilingual narration of Bizet’s Carmen.

Farias was recently selected to conduct at the esteemed Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, the most important showcase for conductors in America. Designed by the League of American Orchestras, the National Conductor Preview chooses the most promising talents in the world for their podium gift and commitment to the future of American orchestras. Farias was also appointed by the National Endowment for the Arts as a reviewing member for the Grant for Art Projects, judging applications from diverse music institutions to support the latest and most important artistic endeavors in the US.

During the summers, Farias has worked with Jaap Van Zweden and Johannes Schlaefli at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival in Switzerland as well as with Neeme and Paavo Järvi at the Pärnu Music Festival. In the United States, he was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Bruno Walter Memorial Conducting Scholarship at the Cabrillo Music Festival and named “Emergent Conductor” by Victor Yampolsky at the Peninsula Music Festival. He also attended the Pierre Monteux Festival where he received the Bernard Osher Scholar Prize. Out of 566 applicants and 78 countries, he was chosen as one of 24 finalists in the prestigious 2018 Malko Conducting Competition with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Hailed by the Gramophone magazine critics, Farias offered one the “most fluent, honest, open-hearted and pointed performances”.

Farias was born in Santiago de Chile, where he began his piano studies at age five. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the P.C. University of Chile and then continued his graduate piano studies at the New England Conservatory as a full-scholarship student of Wha-Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. He has won first prize at the Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition and awards at the Maria Canals and Luis Sigall Piano Competitions. As a conductor, Farias attended the University of Illinois working with Donald Schleicher, the Peabody Conservatory with Marin Alsop, and worked privately with Larry Rachleff and Otto-Werner Mueller.

Besides having a fond love for piano, chamber, and contemporary music, Farias is a passionate supporter of second-order cybernetics as a way to help understand communication and how complex systems organize, coordinate, and interconnect with one another. This includes the interdependent and recursive nature of musical experiences, in which performers and audiences alike interact, respond, and co-create each other’s space. His final Doctoral thesis “Logical Predictions and Cybernetics” explores the case of Cornelius Cardew’s “The Great Learning” to redefine music activity as a self-organized organization. In addition to that, he has a warm affection for his formal studies of Zen Buddhism, which has been a major influence on his approach to music and life.

Galen Fott is a Nashville-based actor, singer, director, animator, and puppeteer. He appeared last season with the Nashville Symphony, where he sang the role of Monsieur Dauphin in the world premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe’s The Jonah People. Other recent Nashville roles include Mr. Mister in The Cradle Will Rock with Nashville Opera, Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Torvald in A Doll’s House, Part 2, Father in Ragtime, Oliver Warbucks in Annie, and King Triton in The Little Mermaid. Elsewhere, he has played the title roles in Cyrano, Phantom, and Jesus Christ Superstar; King Arthur in Camelot; Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden; and Matt Friedman in Talley’s Folly. In 1991, Fott originated the role of Gaston in the still-running Beauty and the Beast stage show at Walt Disney World. Other performing highlights include the national tour of Mame starring Juliet Prowse, singing at Carnegie Hall, and with Houston Grand Opera.
In his related career as a director and animator, Fott has adapted over two dozen children’s books into award-winning films for Scholastic/Weston Woods. For these films, he directed the vocal talents of Sean Hayes, Anika Noni Rose, Paul Giamatti, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, and Joanne Woodward. Fott’s work has screened at the Guggenheim, Sydney Opera House, National Gallery of Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Philharmonie de Paris. His films have also been featured in the Hiroshima and Anima Mundi animation festivals, in the major international film festivals of Houston (twelve-time Remi Award winner), San Francisco (four-time Golden Gate Award nominee), London, and Nashville, and in the major children’s film festivals of New York and Chicago.
Fott has also performed as a puppeteer with the Jim Henson Company. And in a previous life, he co-authored eight books on computer graphics, and was a contributing editor to PC Magazine.
Born in Clarksville, Tennessee, Fott graduated from the University of Memphis with a BFA in Theatre Performance. After spending years in New York, Houston, Vancouver, and Orlando, he now lives in Nashville with his wife Laura and son Burton. www.galenfott.com