Music Director, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Since 2000 Sir Andrew Davis has served as music director and principal conductor of Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he will conduct three of the eight productions presented in the 2009-2010 season. Maestro Davis is the conductor laureate of the Toronto Symphony (having previously served as the principal conductor), the conductor laureate of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (having served as the second-longest running chief conductor since its founder, Sir Adrian Boult) 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, operatic, and choral worlds. In addition to the core symphonic and operatic composers, he is a great proponent of twentieth century works including those by Janáček, Messiaen, Boulez, Elgar, Tippett and Britten.
With the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Davis has led concerts at the London Proms and on tour to Hong Kong, Japan, the US, and Europe. He has conducted all of the major orchestras of the world from the Chicago Symphony to the Berlin Philarmonic to the Royal Concertgebouw, and at opera houses throughout the world including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the Bayreuth Festival.
Maestro Davis is also a prolific recording artist. He has recorded for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Warner Classics International, Capriccio, EMI and CBS, performances. In 2008, Sir Andrew released Elgar’s Violin Concertos featuring violinist James Ehnes and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra on the Onyx Classics label, which won Gramophone’s coveted “Best of Category – Concerto” award....Releases in 2007 include Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with violinist Min-Jyn Kim and Philharmonia Orchestra on the Sony label; a solo recital of operatic favorites sung by soprano Nicole Cabell with Philharmonic Orchestra on the Decca label, which in May won the Solti Prize from the French Académie du Disque Lyrique; 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 2009-2010 season he conducts productions of Tosca, Faust, and The Damnation of Faust at Lyric Opera of Chicago and Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera. He will be seen on the podium with the New York Philharmonic, the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Davis also appears with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Spanish National Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the orchestras of Strasbourg and Vancouver, as well as on tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the Far East and at the Montreux Festival. Sir Andrew makes return appearances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms and in London, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Maestro Davis and his wife, soprano Gianna Rolandi, reside in Chicago where she is the Director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago. For more information about Maestro Davis, please visit his web site at www.sirandrewdavis.com.
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