Conductor and violinist Guillermo Figueroa is one of the most renowned and versatile musicians of his generation. “An instinctive musical aristocrat, he gives a polished turn to every phrase,” wrote Joanne Sheehy Hoover in the Albuquerque Journal. 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. With this orchestra he made his debut as a conductor on CD, in a highly acclaimed performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, together with works by Berlioz and Ravel.
In 1994 he made his Lincoln Center conducting debut with the New York City Ballet. In his dual role as soloist and conductor he has appeared with the Kansas City Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, and the Iceland Symphony. He has been guest conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, the Memphis Symphony, the El Salvador Symphony, the Orquesta del Teatro Municipal de Rio de Janeiro, and with Ballet Memphis and Ballets de San Juan. This season marks his debut with the Phoenix Symphony.
Mr. Figueroa has performed with such distinguished soloists such as Janos Starker, Hilary Hahn, Ruth Laredo, Gary Graffman, Carol Wincenc, Marcelo Alvarez, Florence Quivar, Pepe Romero, Vladimir Feltsman, Horacio Gutierrez, Barry Douglas, Glen Dicterow and Paul Neubauer. This season is highlighted by performances with Itzhak Perlman, Jennifer Larmore, Justino Diaz, and Elmar Oliveira.
For ten years he was concertmaster of the New York City Ballet, appearing in over 100 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, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2003. With this group he has been concertmaster and soloist in acclaimed performances through the United States, Europe, and Asia. Orpheus made over 50 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, on the Eroica Classical Recordings label, and an album of virtuoso violin music by Wieniawsky, Sarasate and others, with pianist Ivonne Figueroa.
With a special affinity for the music of the great French composer Hector Berlioz, Figueroa has created, with the New Mexico Symphony, the most comprehensive Berlioz Festival in the United States (www.berliozfestival.org), to commemorate, in 2003, the 200th anniversary of the birth of that passionate musician. Concerts and lectures with international soloists and renowned Berlioz scholars, staged plays, exhibits, and interactive events will recreate the life and work of that extraordinary composer. Many of these concerts will be repeated with the Puerto Rico Symphony.
Committed to the music of his native Puerto Rico, Figueroa has given the world premieres of works by such important composers as Ernesto Cordero, Raymond Torres, Carlos Vazquez, and Mariano Morales. One composer that has merited special attention from Figueroa is Roberto Sierra, the composer-in-residence of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Albany Records has released the premiere recording of the oratorio Bayoán, by Sierra, with the Bronx Arts Ensemble Orchestra and Chorus, led by Figueroa. He also gave the world premiere, at the Library of Congress, of a work for violin and piano written by Sierra, commissioned in honor of the birth of Aaron Copland.
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.
