SIR ANDREW DAVIS
Music Director, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Sir Andrew Davis is one of today's most highly regarded international conductors. He has served as music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago since 2000. In addition, Maestro Davis is conductor laureate of the Toronto Symphony and the BBC Symphony and the former music director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
Born in 1944 in Hertfordshire, England, Maestro Davis studied at King's College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar before taking up the baton. His diverse repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary, and his vast conducting credits span the symphonic and operatic and choral worlds. He is a great proponent of 20th-century composers Janáček, Messiaen, Boulez, Elgar, Tippett, and Britten, in addition to the core symphonic and operatic composers.
With the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Davis has led concerts at the London Proms and on tour to Hong Kong, Japan, the U.S., and Europe. He has conducted all of the major orchestras of the world from the Chicago Symphony to the Berlin Philarmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw, and at opera houses throughout the world including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, and the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
Maestro Davis is also a prolific recording artist. He has recorded for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Warner Classics International, Capriccio, EMI, and CBS. New releases in 2007 include Beethoven's Violin Concerto with violinist Min-Jyn Kim and the London Philharmonia on the Sony label; a solo recital of operatic favorites sung by soprano Nicole Cabell with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on the Decca label, which in May won the Solti Prize from the French Académie du Disque Lyrique; and Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 with pianist Yundi Li and the London Philharmonia Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon.
In 1992, Maestro Davis was created a Commander of the British Empire for his services to British Music, and in 1999 he was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List. In 1991, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society/Charles Heidsieck Music Award.
In the 2007/2008 season at Lyric Opera of Chicago he conducts a new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, as well as revivals of La traviata, La bohème, Falstaff, and Eugene Onegin. He also conducts concert performances of Thaïs starring Renée Fleming at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; and at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. Orchestral engagements include numerous concerts with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as well as the Cleveland Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonia, Orchestre de Paris, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, and Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.
Davis is married to renowned American soprano Gianna Rolandi, who has performed with major companies around the world and is director of The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago. They have a teenaged son, Edward.
To learn more about Sir Andrew Davis, please visit his web site at www.sirandrewdavis.com.
