DavidRobertson

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  • Conductor

About David

Inaugural Creative Partner: Utah Symphony and Opera

David Robertson was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Ensemble InterContemporain.

The 2024/25 season takes David to the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Philadelphia Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester, The Cleveland Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. With the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, he tours Central Europe with violinist Gil Shaham. 

Highlights of recent seasons include the Seattle Symphony, Royal Danish Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Minnesota Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. 

Since his 1996 Metropolitan Opera debut, Robertson has conducted several productions at the Met, including the 2019/20 season premiere production of Porgy and Bess for which he earned a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2021. At the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, he conducted Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová

David serves on the Tianjin Juilliard Advisory Council, complementing his role as Director of Conducting Studies, Distinguished Visiting Faculty of The Juilliard School, New York.

David is based in New York

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Contact

Katharina Ronnefeld

Katharina Ronnefeld

Director & Manager: Artists & Touring
Doris Franze

Doris Franze

Associate Manager: Artists & Attractions; Manager: Financial Operations

Representation

European & Asian management with Askonas Holt

Partner Managers:
Opus 3 Artists (general management)

Season Highlights

Sep 2024
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg / Wunderino Arena Kiel
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune Mahler: Adagio from Symphony No.10 (Ratz) Schönberg: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra Op.42 Gershwin: Variations on "I Got Rhythm" Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano) NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester
Nov 2024
Gewandhaus, Leipzig
Webern: Passacaglia Op.1 Berg: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra ("Dem Andenken eines Engels") Wagner: Overture "Tristan und Isolde" WWV90 Schönberg: Monodram "Erwartung" Op.17 Augustin Hadelich (violin) Aušrinė Stundytė (soprano) Gewandhausorchester
Nov 2024 - Dec 2024
Severance Music Center, Cleveland
Copland: Suite from Appalachian Spring Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue Ellington: New World A-Comin' Copland: Suite from The Tender Land Marc-André Hamelin (piano) The Cleveland Orchestra
Jan 2025
Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco
Adams: After the Fall [San Francisco Symphony Commission and World Premiere] Orff: Carmina burana Víkingur Ólafsson (piano) Susanna Phillips (soprano) Arnold Livingston Geis (tenor) Will Liverman (baritone) Jenny Wong (director) San Francisco Symphony Chorus San Francisco Symphony
Jan 2025
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall, New York
J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.3 Schubert: Symphony No.2 Webern: Symphony Op.21 Boulez: Pli selon pli: Improvisations sur Mallarmé, I and II Stravinsky: L’Histoire du soldat Suite New York Philharmonic
Mar 2025
Berlin, Linz, München, Zagreb, Ljubljana
Boulanger: D’un matin de printemps / Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte for Orchester Korngold: Concerto for Violin D major / Tschaikowsky: Concertor for Violin D major Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances / Rimski-Korsakow: Scheherazade Gil Shaham (violin) Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Photos

Sample Programmes

  • Beethoven: Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op.80 Interval Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op.125

  • Chopin/Stravinsky: Nocturne in A-flat major, Op.32, No.1 (Instrumentation by Stravinsky) Tchaikovsky: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra D major, Op.35 Interval Stravinsky: Petrushka

  • Ligeti: San Francisco Polyphony Adams: Why must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes Interval Rachmaninov: Symphony No.1 in D minor, Op.1

  • Gubaidulina: Rider on a White Horse (organ improvisation) Interval Widmann: Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra "Towards Paradise"

  • Beethoven: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra D major, Op.61 Interval Adams: Harmonielehre

  • Chin: Violin Concerto No.2 Interval Mahler: Symphony No.1 "Titan

  • Debussy: Images I Ligeti: Piano Concerto 1980/88 Ravel: Rhapsodie Espagnole for Orchestra

  • Eötvös: Fermata, pour quinze musiciens (création française) Eötvös: Adventures of the Dominant Seventh Chord, pour alto (chamber music) Iannotta: Nouvelle œuvre, pour grand ensemble (création mondiale) Interval Eötvös: Joyce, pour clarinette (chamber music) Eötvös: Chinese Opera, pour ensemble

  • Srnka: Superorganism Interval Janáček: Putování dušičky (The Pilgrimage of a Little Soul) for violin and orchestra Dvořák: Mazurek for violin and orchestra, Op.49 Suk: Praga

  • Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.1 Interval Gershwin: Rhapsody in blue

News

Press

  • Ligeti, Firsova and Brahms with New York Philharmonic

    David Geffen Hall, New York
    Oct 2023
    • It’s always a good sign when an orchestra’s players light up with smiles at a conductor. And on Thursday night at David Geffen Hall, that happened over and over, with grins passing between the musicians of the New York Philharmonic and its podium guest, David Robertson, throughout a beguiling, smart program.

  • Schönberg, Copland and Adams with Sāo Paulo State Symphony Orchestra

    Sao Paulo, Brazil
    Apr 2022
    • I leave the best for last, which was the presence of the brilliant conductor David Robertson, surely one of the most accomplished conductors of today for the repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries. With great musicality and clear gestures, Robertson is a sure guide in scores of great complexity.

  • Mahler Symphony 7 Los Angeles Philharmonic 22-03-2022

    Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
    Mar 2022
    • David Robertson, back at Disney Hall [with the LA Phil] for the first time in five years, led Mahler’s most enigmatic, least-played symphony as if in visceral acknowledgment of war and its implications… Robertson did not deny Mahler his glorious lyricism, but he defied his nostalgia. That meant marches that marched with relentless energy. It meant startling percussive accents. It meant whipping up a frenzy. The wind playing was spectacular. The brass filled every sonic inch of Disney. There was no sleeping in this night music, no time to stop and smell the roses… When everything is on the line, you can’t always look back. That’s the only way to preserve nostalgia for the future.

  • Janáček, Kát’a Kabanová

    Opera di Roma
    Feb 2022
    • The conductor David Robertson clearly returns every orchestral detail of this complex score, which he evidently knows well: his is an objective reading, without sentimentality, but he does not let the feelings, passions and impulses of these characters escape.