Who's Conducting Which Orchestra?

By John J. Puccio

 Like me, you probably have a hard time keeping track of who is conducting what orchestra. So, here is a list of some of the world's leading orchestras and their current conductors. If you hear of a change, please forward it to me (classicalcandor@gmail.com) to help keep the list updated.

Also, my apologies if I did not include your favorite orchestra. For simple housekeeping reasons, I tried to keep the list as concise as possible. However, I'm sure I overlooked somebody important, and I am open to suggestions.

Last updated: May 2020

Academy of Ancient Music - Richard Egarr
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields - Joshua Bell
Albany Symphony Orchestra - David Alan Miller
Antwerp Symphony Orchestra - Elim Chan
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra - Robert Spano
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra - Marin Alsop
Bamberg Symphony - Jakub Hrusa
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra -
Bavarian State Orchestra - Kirill Petrenko
BBC Symphony Orchestra - Sakari Oramo
BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Ryan Bancroft (as of 9/20)
BBC Philharmonic - Omer Meir Wellber
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra - Thomas Dausgaard
Berlin Philharmonic - Kirill Petrenko
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra - Vladimir Jurowski
Boston Baroque - Martin Pearlman
Boston Pops Orchestra - Keith Lockhart
Boston Symphony Orchestra - Andris Nelsons
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra - Kirill Karabits
Budapest Festival Orchestra - Iván Fischer
Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra - Pinchas Steinberg
Chamber Orchestra of Europe - Guest conductors only
Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Riccardo Muti
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra - John Morris Russell
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra - Louis Langree
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra - Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla
Cleveland Orchestra - Franz Welser-Möst
Concentus Musicus Wien - Erich Hobarth
Czech National Symphony Orchestra - Steven Mercurio
Czech Philharmonic - Semyon Bychkov
Dallas Symphony Orchestra - Fabio Luisi
Detroit Symphony Orchestra - Jader Bignamini (as of 9/20)
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin - Robin Ticciati
Dresden Staatskapelle - Christian Thielemann
English Chamber Orchestra - Paul Watkins
English Concert - Harry Bicket
English Symphony Orchestra - Kenneth Woods
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra - Miguel Harth-Bedoya
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra - Alain Altinoglu
Gothenburg Symphony - Santu Matias Rouvali
Gurzenich Orchestra Cologne - Francois-Xavier Roth
Halle Orchestra - Sir Mark Elder
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra - Susanna Malkki
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra - Thomas Wilkins
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra - Jaap van Zweden
Houston Symphony - Andres Orozco-Estrada
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra - Zsolt Hamar
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra - Zahav Shani
Kansas City Symphony - Michael Stern
Konzerthausorchester Berlin - Christoph Eschenbach
Lahti Symphony Orchestra - Dima Slobodeniouk
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra - Andris Nelsons
London Philharmonic Orchestra - Vladimir Jurowski
London Symphony Orchestra - Sir Simon Rattle
Los Angeles Philharmonic - Gustavo Dudamel
Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra (Kirov Orchestra) - Valery Gergiev
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra - Yannick Nezet-Seguin
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra - Ken-David Masur
Minnesota Orchestra - Osmo Vanska
Montreal Symphony Orchestra - Kent Nagano
Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra - Kazuki Yamada
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra - Valery Gergiev
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra - Yuri Simonov
National Symphony Orchestra (México) - Carlos Miguel Prieto
National Symphony Orchestra (United States) - Gianandrea Noseda
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra - Alan Gilbert
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra - Karina Canellakis
New Century Chamber Orchestra - Daniel Hope
New York Philharmonic - Jaap van Zweden
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - Hamish McKeich
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande - Jonathan Nott
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - Antonio Pappano
Orchestre de Paris - Klaus Makela
Orchestre National de France - Emmanuel Krivine
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra - Rotating leadership
Oslo Philharmonic - Klaus Makela
Philadelphia Orchestra - Yannick Nezet-Seguin
Philharmonia Baroque - Nicholas McGegan
Philharmonia Orchestra - Esa-Pekka Salonen
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra - Manfred Honeck
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra - Ward Stare
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra - Lahav Shani
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra - Currently vacant
Royal Danish Orchestra - Alexander Vedernikov
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Vasily Petrenko
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Vasily Petrenko
Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Thomas Sondergard
Russian National Orchestra - Mikhail Pletnev
Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra - Yuri Temirkanov
San Francisco Symphony - Esa-Pekka Salonen
Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Maxim Emelyanchev
Seattle Symphony - Thomas Dausgaard
Singapore Symphony Orchestra - Hans Graf
Staatskapelle Weimar - Kirill Karabits
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra - Stephane Deneve
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra - Daniel Harding
Sydney Symphony Orchestra - designate, Simone Young
Teatro alla Scala Orchestra - Riccardo Chailly
Tonhalle Orchester Zurich - Paavo Jarvi
Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra - Andrea Battistoni
Ulster Orchestra - Daniele Rustioni
Utah Symphony - Thierry Fischer
Vienna Philharmonic - Guest conductors only
Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra - Andrey Boreyko
WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne - Cristian Macelaru

JJP
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12 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 22, 2013 at 5:51 AM

    Some European orchestras who deserve a place on the list:

    München Philharmonic Orchestra - Lorin Maazel (soon Valery Gergiev)
    Swedish Radio Symphony - Daniel Harding
    Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin - Ivan Fischer
    Orchestra La Monnaie Brussels - Ludovic Morlot
    WDR Symphony Orchestra - Jukka Pekka Saraste
    Bavarian State Orchestra - Kent Nagano
    Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra - Markus Stenz
    Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra - Edo de Waart
    NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg - Thomas Hengelbrock

    ReplyDelete
  2. John J. PuccioNovember 22, 2013 at 9:56 AM

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 30, 2014 at 8:54 AM

    Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - Mariss Jansons
    Bavarian State Orchestra - Kirill Petrenko

    ReplyDelete
  4. John J. PuccioNovember 30, 2014 at 10:30 AM

    Thank goodness for readers. Thanks much.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gordon SimpsonJanuary 5, 2015 at 10:03 AM

    Four excellent orchestras in the UK:

    BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Thomas Sondergard)
    BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (Juanjo Mena)
    BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Donald Runnicles)
    Ulster Orchestra (JoAnn Falletta)

    ReplyDelete
  6. John J. PuccioJanuary 5, 2015 at 1:23 PM

    Thanks much, Gordon.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousFebruary 23, 2015 at 9:10 AM

    Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra - Miguel Harth-Bedoya

    ReplyDelete
  8. General ManagerSeptember 5, 2015 at 12:07 AM

    Great post.
    Barrett Wissman

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousNovember 5, 2018 at 6:19 PM

    Jiří Bělohlávek passed away in 2017. Czech Philharmonic is now conducted by Semyon Bychkov.

    ReplyDelete
  10. crmstaffordAugust 29, 2020 at 7:57 PM

    Gothenburg Symphony - Santtu-Matias Rouvali
    Orchestre de Paris - Daniel Harding left at the end of the last season, replaced by Klaus Makela

    ReplyDelete

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Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Editor, Publisher, Reviewer

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.
Karl W. Nehring, Contributing Reviewer

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to its classical review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simpleminded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me -- point out recordings that I think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises an Arcam CDS50 CSD/SACD CD player, Goldpoint SA4 Passive Preamp, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I also do a lot of listening while driving in my 2016 Acura RDX with its nice-sounding ELS Studio sound system through which I play CDs (the ones I especially like I rip to the Acura's hard drive so that I can listen to them whenever I want) or stream music through the system using my cell phone. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has remarkably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can't imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.
Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

William (Bill) Heck, Contributing Reviewer

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to that classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Recently I’ve rebuilt--I prefer to say reinvigorated--my audio system, with a Sangean FM HD tuner and (for the moment) an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a transport, both feeding a NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, which in turn connects to a Legacy Powerbloc2 amplifier driving my trusty Waveform Mach Solo speakers, supplemented by a Hsu Research ULS 15 Mk II subwoofer.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa