GUILLERMO FIGUEROA
Conductor and violinist Guillermo Figueroa is one of the most renowned and versatile musicians of his generation. A member of Puerto Rico's most distinguished musical family, he was named Music Director of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in 2000, after serving as that orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor for several seasons. In 2001 he was also named the tenth Music Director of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, becoming the first Puerto Rican-born conductor to lead an important orchestra in the United States.
For ten years he was Concertmaster of the New York City Ballet, appearing in over a hundred performances of the violin concerti by Stravinsky, Berg, Prokofieff, Brahms, Barber, Adams and Glass. Figueroa is a Founding Member of the world-renowned conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. With this group he has been concertmaster and soloist in acclaimed performances throughout the US, Europe and Asia. Orpheus made over fifty recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, many led by Figueroa, highlighted by Strauss' Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Berlioz' Reverie et Caprice, the Chamber Symphonies of Schoenberg and the Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music by Handel. In 1995 Figueroa was the soloist in the world premiere, at Carnegie Hall, of the Concerto for Violin and Chamber Orchestra written especially for him and Orpheus by Mario Davidovsky.
Figueroa has recorded the Three Violin Sonatas by Béla Bartók, with pianist Robert Koenig, in the Eroica Classical Recordings label, and an album of virtuoso violin music by Wieniawsky, Sarasate and others, with pianist Ivonne Figueroa. Mr. Figueroa began violin studies with his father Guillermo, and later with his uncle José at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, where he also worked with Pablo Casals. He attended the Juilliard School where his teachers were Oscar Shumsky and Felix Galimir. His conducting studies were with Harold Farberman in New York. In 1979 Mr. Figueroa won first prize in violin at the Washington International Competition.
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