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Gregory Vajda, conductor

b i o g r a p h y...........back to roster....up June 2010 Hailed as a "young titan" by the Montreal Gazette after conducting the Montreal Symphony in Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, Gregory Vajda has fast become one of the most sought-after conductors on the international scene. After completing his tenure as assistant conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in 2005, Mr. Vajda took over as resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra at the start of the 2005-06 season. Additionally, in 2009 he was appointed Artistic and Music Director of Music in the Mountains, CA - the only second conductor to hold that position in the festival’s 28-year history. Highlights of next season include a subscription series with the Oregon Symphony featuring the US premiere of his work “Duevoe,” a return to Atlanta Opera conducting La bohème, and return engagements to the Edmonton Symphony and Symphony Silicon Alley. Vajda’s 2009/10 season began with a stint at the Hungarian Radio, followed by his first return to the Hungarian State Opera since emigrating to the US. In his adopted country he led subscription concerts with the Oregon Symphony, debuts with the Seattle, Grand Rapids and Memphis symphonies, and returned to the San Antonio Symphony and Symphony Silicon Valley. Season 2008/09 marked Vajda’s introduction to the Salzburg Festival as assistant conductor to Peter Eötvös. He conducted the final performance of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Chorus, before returning to the Atlanta Opera to lead La Cenerentola. On the orchestra stage, he conducted the Toronto, Edmonton, San Antonio, and Silicon Valley symphonies. He also helped inaugurate the widely talked-about EMPAC at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY) with a performance of Grabstein für Stephan by György Kurtag. During the 2007-08 season, Vajda returned to the Montreal Opera in performances of Un ballo in maschera and led two subscription concerts with the Oregon Symphony in addition to concerts with the Charlotte Symphony and Santa Rosa Symphony. Overseas, he conducted the Budapest Concert Orchestra in a program of American music. His summer engagements included returns to Chicago’s Grant Park Festival and the Round Top Festival in Texas, where he conducted his own orchestral work entitled Duevoe. 2006-07 brought him to the Charlotte Symphony, Honolulu Symphony and Atlanta Opera (Romeo et Juliette). In the summer of 2006, he conducted Les Violons du Roy, the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center and returned to the Round Top Festival in Texas, Milwaukee Symphony and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at Lanaudière Festival. While assistant conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony, Gregory Vajda led several regional tours and had opportunities to conduct the Canadian Brass, Maureen McGovern, the King Singers, as well as the Milwaukee Symphony in a yearly classical subscription series. In past seasons, Vajda appeared with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Winnipeg, Louisville and Omaha symphonies, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Ensemble Intercontemporain, led the Klangforum Vienna in performances of Péter Eötvös’ As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams and Three Sisters (as part of the Wiener Festwochen), gave the premiere of his chamber opera The Giantbaby at the New Theatre in Budapest, and the premiere of Hungarian composer György Ránki’s opera King Pomade’s New Clothes at the Hungarian State Opera. He has also conducted at the festivals of Avignon and Strassbourg, at the Woodstock Mozart Festival and at the Mostly Mozart Festival in Lincoln Center. In addition to conducting, Vajda is also a clarinetist and composer. Recently, he conducted his own composition for the silent film The Crowd at the Auditorium of the Louvre, with American pianist Jay Gottlieb. He has also recorded his piece Duevoe with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was honored with the Zoltán Kodály State Scholarship for composers for the year 2000, and the Annie Fischer State Scholarship for music performers in the year 1999. Born in Budapest the son of renowned soprano Veronika Kincses, Gregory Vajda studied composition at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music under Professor Ervin Lukács. He was also a conducting pupil of well-known composer and conductor, Péter Eötvös. b i o....r e p e r t o i r e....d i s c o g r a p h y....r e v i e w s back to roster...up . . . .

. r e p e r t o i r e...........back to roster....up click here to read Gregory Vajda's repertoire (MS Word) b i o....r e p e r t o i r e....d i s c o g r a p h y....r e v i e w s back to roster...up . . . .

. d i s c o g r a p h y...........back to roster....up C.M. Weber: Prelude, Theme and Variations 1995 Douwe Egberts Melodies, D.E. 95001 György Selmeczi: Fantasia concertante 1995 Hungaroton Classic, HCD 31734 B. Martinu: Sextet 1997 Hungaroton Classic, HCD 31674 Works of Franck, Schubert, Stradella, Bizet 1998 Live Recording, Private Edition L. Berio: Folksongs 1998 European EOS J. Sári: Six Fanfares, Die Verwandlungen des Don Genaro 1999 BMC b i o....r e p e r t o i r e....d i s c o g r a p h y....r e v i e w s back to roster...up . . . .

. r e v i e w s...........back to roster....up “… Under Vajda’s guidance, the instrumentalists gave Liszt’s Les Preludes a beautiful performance. There was precision in the music’s bursts of energy and much refinement in the gentle episodes. Full marks to the team for playing this well-known music so enjoyably.” The Gazette (Montréal) “He [Gregory Vajda] obtained amazing colors in the Bartok and gave a certain grandeur to the Liszt.” La Presse (Montréal) “Directed with a stupefying management of dynamics in an ineluctable crescendo by the excellent Gregory Vajda, [Liszt’s] Preludes eschewed vulgar fortes and screaming brass. [The Preludes] were rich with nuance, yet cemented by a dazzling percussion section. An alchemy between orchestra and conductor already manifested itself in the Bartok, where the musicians, notably the clarinets, fully played out the colors of central Europe.” Le Devoir (Montréal) “It is the mark of Gregory Vajda’s talent that, as the conductor of the ‘Paris-Dakar’ composition [CD -Messages: Peter Eotvos Compositions], Vajda was able to show the highest standards in performance. After multiple listenings, without a doubt everyone gave the best of their talent, and the messages of Eotvos have indeed arrived.” Muzsika (Hungary) “Vajda didn’t have to goad his players on. They gleefully tore into Respighi’s boxes of fireworks (Fountains of Rome) and lit up the sky with them.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “The Omaha Symphony, led by guest conductor Gregory Vajda, augmented the cool big band sound with lush strings, extra percussion and brass.” Omaha World-Herald “The Orchestra, led by the talented, energetic Gregory Vajda, did not take its duke Ellington medley or its Viennese waltz and polka for granted, even though they were filler on a program that was first about the building and second about song stylist Michael Feinstein.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams by Peter Eotvos, a ‘sound theatre’ in the no man’s land of modern opera, produces images of illusory worlds, offering an acceptable hour-long experience. With the every now and then vertical seeming music (Klangforum conducted by Gregory Vajda, once again sovereign and masterful), which is very easily static, not requiring much reflection, yet it does succeed in creating a suggestive tendency in which one can involve one’s self.” Neue Kronen Zeitung (Vienna) “Gregory Vajda, the fantastically talented clarinet player and the fantastically talented conductor, now proved himself to be a fantastically talented composer as well. This music did not have even a tired second the whole time.” Muzsika “Gregory Vajda is the most joyful reward of the recent Hungarian musical life. Vajda is a multi-faceted talent all at a very high level. He is a clarinet virtuoso, a demanding conductor, a dynamic composer – acknowledged by all of my fellow critics.” Magyar Hirlap “The dream-opera of Peter Eotvos was conducted and held together by Gregory Vajda, the young giant of our musical life. His extraordinary abilities will secure his star-like career. His previous conducting in Paris and Vienna of the same opera had been internationally acknowledged.” Muzsika “Is there still such a thing as Hungarian Music? Does the legend of Bartok still live? In Gregory Vajda’s composition Hypertext one believes that the Hungarian music after Bartok still thrives.” Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung b i o....r e p e r t o i r e....d i s c o g r a p h y....r e v i e w s back to roster...up . .

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