American conductor DENNIS RUSSELL DAVIES has been named artistic director and principal conductor of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech Republic. Davies’s contract starts with the 2018-19 season and runs through 2022. The timing coincides with the construction of the Janáček Cultural Centre in Brno, a concert hall that will become the Brno Philharmonic’s home and is projected to open in 2020. Davies recently concluded his fifteenth and final season as music director and chief conductor of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and Linz Opera. He previously held principal conducting positions with the American Composers Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, Cabrillo Music Festival, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bonn Opera and Beethovenhalle Orchestra, State Opera Stuttgart, and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. On November 7, 2017, Davies will conduct the American Composers Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1975, in its 40th birthday gala concert in New York City. Originally formed by Leoš Janáček as the amateur Czech Symphony Orchestra in the 1870s, the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra in its current configuration was established in 1956 by merging the Radio Orchestra and Brno Regional Symphony Orchestra.
Posted September 27, 2017
