Dutch Conductor Edo de Waart
Hong Kong Philharmonic Music Director Set to Lead Milwaukee Symphony
Dutch-born Edo de Waart is scheduled to replace Andreas Delfs as the Milwaukee Symphony's Music Director, and will begin phasing in over the next couple of years.
The Milwaukee Symphony will be getting a new conductor. Dutch-born Edo de Waart will serve first as the music director designate for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons, conducting his concert subscription debut with the symphony in April.
When the current Milwaukee Symphony conductor Andreas Delfs leaves as scheduled at the end of the 2008-2009 season, de Waart will then assume fuller duties such as conducting a minimum of 12 weeks per season as well as managing the artistic profile of the Milwaukee Symphony. As such, a music director's job is part musical and part marketing/public relations.
Edo de Waart is currently the chief conductor and artistic director for the Hong Kong Philharmonic and will remain so until his contract ends in 2012, overlapping a few years with his time at the Milwaukee Symphony. He also serves as the chief conductor and artistic advisor of the Santa Fe Opera, a post he assumed in October 2007.
Edo de Waart: Contemporary Music Around the World
Born in Amsterdam in 1941, Edo de Waart studied conducting, piano and oboe at the Music Lyceum in Amsterdam. At the age of 23, he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York and spent the 1964/1965 season as Assistant Conductor under Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic.
He has directed orchestras across the world, from his native Rotterdam Philharmonic in the Netherlands to the San Francisco Symphony (1977-1985), the Minnesota Orchestra (1986-1995), the Sydney Symphony (1995-2004) and the Hong Kong Philharmonic (2004-present).
The Milwaukee Symphony position now brings Edo de Waart closer to home: His wife, mezzo-soprano Rebecca Dopp, is a Wisconsin native from Middleton, and the two reside in Madison, WI together.
Recommended Albums
Edo de Waart has recorded multiple albums, including a performance of minimalist composer Steve Reich's Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards. He has also recorded several works by another minimalist composer, John Adams, including Adams' opera Nixon in China.
Demonstrating a preference for Romantic, post-Romantic and 20th-century music (with a nod towards classical music staples such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven), de Waart has also recorded works by Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, R. Strauss, Mahler, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Gershwin and Bernstein. More recently, he has led the RFO Holland in recording all of Rachmaninoff's orchestral works.
Sources
"Dutch Conductor De Waart to Take Baton of Milwaukee Symphony." Jan. 3, 2008. CBC News.
"Edo de Waart." Harrison Parrott biography.
"Milwaukee Symphony Names Music Director." Jan. 3, 2008. Yahoo! News.
