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James Gaffigan Conductor
Chief Conductor Designate, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra
Principal Guest Conductor Designate, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
Hailed for the natural ease of his conducting and the compelling insight of his musicianship, James Gaffigan is considered by many to be the most outstanding young American conductor of his generation. He was recently appointed Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, both positions beginning in the 2011/12 season. As a guest conductor, he is in high demand working with leading orchestras and opera houses throughout the United States and in Europe.
In the United States, Mr. Gaffigan’s guest engagements have included the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore and National symphonies and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. In Europe, hehas worked with the Munich Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Leipzig and Stuttgart Radio Orchestras and the Gürzenich Orchestra (Cologne) among others.
In the 2010/11 season, he returns to the Leipzig and Stuttgart Radio Orchestras, Munich Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, DSO Berlin, Qatar Philharmonic, Cincinatti, Houston and Indianapolis, orchestras. This season he will make his debut with the Milwaukee Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sao Paolo Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic and Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestras.
Increasingly active as an opera conductor, this season James Gaffigan conducts The Marriage of Figaro at the Houston Opera. He first made his professional opera debut at the Zurich Opera in 2005 conducting La Bohème. In the summer of 2009, he conducted Don Giovanni at the Aspen Music Festival and also led a production of Falstaff for Glyndebourne-on-Tour. He returned to the Glyndebourne Festival in 2010 to share a production of Cosi fan tutte with Sir Charles Mackerras as well as to Aspen to lead performances of The Marriage of Figaro.
Born in New York City in 1979, Mr. Gaffigan studied at the LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Juilliard School Preparatory Division. A graduate of New England Conservatory of Music, he earned his Masters of Music in conducting at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, where he worked with Larry Rachleff. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Gaffigan was one of eight young conductors chosen by David Zinman to participate as an Academy Conductor in the inaugural year of the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen. Two years later he received the Academy's first Robert Harth Conducting Award and the following summer he was selected as one of two conducting fellows to study at the Tanglewood Music Center.
Mr. Gaffigan was the Associate Conductor with the San Francisco Symphony assisting Michael Tilson Thomas and was Artistic Director of the orchestra's Summer in the City festival. Prior to that appointment, he was the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra where he worked under Music Director Franz Welser-Moest from 2003 through 2006. James Gaffigan's international career was launched when he was named a first prize winner at the 2004 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition. James Gaffigan resides in Lucerne with his wife, the writer Lee Taylor Gaffigan.
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