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Gregory Vajda, conductor

b i o g r a p h y...........back to roster....up May 2011 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. Reflecting his growing presence and demand in North America, he has been recently appointed the sixth music director of the Huntsville Symphony, succeeding Carlos Miguel Prieto. Concurrently, he continues to serve as artistic and music director of Music in the Mountains, CA – a position held since 2009 – and completes his sixth and last year as resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony. In addition to his duties with these three organizations, upcoming guest-conducting engagements during 2011/12 combine returns to the Seattle Symphony and Edmonton Symphony with his debut leading the Toledo Symphony. Highlights of the 2010/11 season included a subscription series with the Oregon Symphony featuring the US premiere of his work "Duevoe," a return to Atlanta Opera conducting La bohème, and re-engagements to the Baltimore Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Symphony Silicon Valley and Round Top Festival. Debuts with the Louisiana Philharmonic and Huntsville Symphony rounded out the season. Vajda’s 2009/10 season began with a stint at the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, 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. While assistant conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony, a position he relinquished in 2005, 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 gifted clarinetist and composer. 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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