Oregon Symphony Conductor Bio

Carlos Kalmar

Oregon Symphony Music Director

Carlos Kalmar is now beginning his seventh season as music director of the Oregon Symphony. He was first appointed to the post in 2003, and in 2008 his contract was extended until 2013. He is also principal conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. During his career, he has been music director of the Hamburg Symphony, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Vienna’s Tonkunstlerorchester and the Anhaltisches Theater in Dessau, Germany. 

Outside of Portland, 2009/10 performances include concerts at the New England Conservatory of Music as well as performances with the Nashville Symphony, the Flemish Radio Symphony and elsewhere across Europe. Kalmar’s recent guest-conducting engagements in North America have included concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, New World Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony and others.

His international conducting appearances have included the Prague Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Symphony, the National Orchestra of Spain, the ORT Orchestra of Florence, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Hamburg State Opera, the BBC Welsh, the Residentie, the Vienna State Opera, the Yomiuri Japan Orchestra, the Flemish Radio and the Zurich Opera.

Kalmar’s next recording will feature the Oregon Symphony with the popular Portland-based group Pink Martini, recorded together at live concerts in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in spring of 2009. His most recent recordings on the Cedille label include two 2008 releases with the Grant Park Orchestra, one of works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis and one featuring mezzo soprano Jennifer Larmore. His 2006 release of the Szymanowski, Martinu and Bartok Violin Concertos with the Grant Park Orchestra and Jennifer Koh was highly acclaimed, as was the 2003 release of the Joachim and Brahms Violin Concertos featuring Rachel Barton and the Chicago Symphony, and American Works for Organ and Orchestra featuring David Schrader and the Grant Park Orchestra (2002).

Carlos Kalmar was born in Uruguay to Austrian parents. He showed an interest in music at an early age and began studying violin at age 6. By age 15 his musical development led him to the Vienna Academy of Music, where he studied conducting with Karl Osterreicher. He lives in Portland and Vienna.