The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has appointed ROBERT SPANO principal guest conductor, effective immediately. Longtime Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya announced last May that he will step down at the end of the 2019-20 season. Spano is also music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School and, through 2020-21, of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. As principal guest conductor in Fort Worth, Spano will conduct two of the orchestra’s ten scheduled concert weekends in the 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2022-23 seasons. This weekend, he will guest conduct the FWSO in Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Strauss’s Four Last Songs with soprano Jessica Rivera as soloist. In addition to conducting, Spano is a pianist, composer, and teacher. In his eighteen seasons at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, he established what is known as the Atlanta School of Composers, premiering works by composers including Jennifer Higdon, Michael Gandolfi, and Christopher Theofanidis. His own recent compositions include Sonata: Four Elements for piano, premiered by Spano in August 2016 at the Aspen Music Festival, and a new song cycle, Hölderlin-Lieder, performed by soprano Jessica Rivera. He has guest conducted the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, the San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Oregon, Utah, and Kansas City symphonies, and the Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Minnesota orchestras. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2018-19 conducting Nico Muhly’s Marnie, and his opera performances also include Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, and Seattle Opera. Spano holds a conductor residency with the Colburn School Orchestra in Los Angeles.
Posted March 15, 2019
Robert Spano photo by Andrew Eccles
