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JoAnn Falletta Conductor Full Length Biography Multiple GRAMMY-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center, and Conductor Laureate of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. She was recently named one of the “Fifty Great Conductors”, past and present, by Gramophone Magazine, and has been hailed by the Washington Post for having “Toscanini’s tight control over ensemble, Walter’s affectionate balancing of inner voices, Stokowski’s gutsy showmanship, and a controlled frenzy worthy of Bernstein.” As Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra.
Her 1999 appointment as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic making her the first woman music director of a major American orchestra is one of the high points in a career of many firsts. In 1989, she was the first woman to become music director of an American regional orchestra when she took the position with the Long Beach Symphony in California. From 2011-14, she served as Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra—the first woman and the first American to fill this post. In 2018, she was the first American woman conductor to lead an orchestra at the Beethoven Easter Festival in Poland, and in 1992, she became the first woman to conduct Germany's historic Mannheim Orchestra. Falletta has conducted over 1,700 orchestral works by 600-plus composers, including over 135 works by more than 70 women composers. Credited with performing more than 150 world premieres, ASCAP has honored her as “a leading force for music of our time”. In 2019, JoAnn was named Performance Today’s first Classical Woman of The Year, calling her a “tireless champion”, and lauding her “unique combination of artistic authority and compassion, compelling musicianship and humanity.”
As Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, she has been credited with bringing the orchestra to an unprecedented level of national and international prominence. The Buffalo Philharmonic has become one of the leading recording orchestras for Naxos, with two Grammy Award-winning recordings and a 2024 Best Orchestral Performance Grammy nomination for Alexander Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy and Symphony No. 2 (Naxos). Under her leadership, the BPO began a relationship with the Naxos label, producing thirty albums to date and providing the BPO with international distribution. The Orchestra also started the Beau Fleuve label during her tenure, producing 31 CDs on that label to date. In honor of Falletta’s 25th Anniversary with the BPO, NAXOS released twenty full albums of music, previously available only on Beau Fleuve CDs, across all major streaming platforms. She has led the BPO in three concerts at Carnegie Hall, first in 2004 after a 20-year absence, again in 2013 as part of the Spring for Music Festival and in October 2022, to celebrate the Lukas Foss centennial. In 2018, the BPO made their first international tour in three decades, to perform at Warsaw’s prestigious Beethoven Easter Festival. She and the BPO have been honored with numerous ASCAP awards, including the top award for Adventurous Programming. Other accomplishments include the founding of the JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition in partnership with WNED, five successful tours of Florida, and the national and international broadcast of concerts on NPR’s Performance Today, SymphonyCast, and the European Broadcasting Union and nationally broadcast specials on PBS and Sirius XM. She and the BPO have collaborated with regional arts organizations such as art museums, historical sites, opera, choirs, theater, and community organizations, including concerts to benefit the local hospitals, and to bring awareness to the need for unity following tragic events in the Buffalo region.
In 2020, JoAnn Falletta concluded a long and successful tenure as Music Director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and was named the Connie and Marc Jacobson Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Under her baton, the VSO rose to celebrated artistic heights, performing world premieres by such composers as Kenneth Fuchs, Behzad Ranjbaran, Michael Daugherty and Lowell Liebermann, forgotten gems of the classical repertoire, as well as classics, pops and family concerts in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News and Williamsburg. The Orchestra made critically acclaimed debuts at the Kennedy Center and New York’s Carnegie Hall, was honored with an ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, and released eighteen recordings, including discs on the internationally acclaimed Naxos label, Albany Records, NPR, and the orchestra’s own Hampton Roads label. Virginians have honored her with a star on Norfolk’s Legends of Music Walk of Fame, the Virginia Women in History Award, Norfolk’s Downtowner of the Year, the 50 for 50 Arts Inspiration Award from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the Virginia Arts Festival’s Ovation Award in recognition of her significant impact on the arts in Hampton Roads. With a discography of over 135 titles, JoAnn is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual Grammy Awards, including the 2021 Grammy® Award for Best Choral Performance as Conductor of the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua. In 2019, she won her first individual Grammy Award as conductor of the London Symphony in the Best Classical Compendium category for Spiritualist, her fifth world premiere recording of the music of Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan with the BPO received two Grammys in 2008. The BPO’s 2020 Naxos recording of orchestral music of Florent Schmitt received the Diapason d’Or Award. Her upcoming releases for Naxos with the BPO include The French in Spain (Ravel, Ibert and Debussy), Stravinsky Fairy Tales and Symphonic Dances (Bartok, Copland and Hindemith). In early 2024, Naxos released the BPO’s recording of orchestral works of Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály-Hary Janos, Symphony and Summer Evening, Alexander Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy and Symphony No. 2, and a recording of two concertos by award-winning American composers, Danny Elfman’s violin concerto Eleven Eleven performed by Sandy Cameron and Adolphus Hailstork’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Stewart Goodyear, as well as a recording of works by Copland, Creston, Kay and Piston with the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic and soloists Anna Mattix (English Horn) and Tim McAllister (saxophone). Her most recent recording is an album of the music of Danny Elfman with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on Sony.
Recalling her lessons from conducting greats Leonard Bernstein, Jorge Mester, Sixten Ehrling, and Semyon Bychkov as artistic highlights of her life, Falletta is a strong advocate and mentor for young professional and student musicians. She has led seminars for women conductors for the League of American Orchestras and established a unique collaboration between the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Mannes College of Music to give up-and-coming conductors professional experience with a leading American orchestra. The BPO associate and assistant conductors she has mentored have gone on to music director positions with such orchestras such as the Boise, Springfield (MO), Augusta, Spartanberg and Fayetteville symphonies and the Louisiana Philharmonic. She served on the jury of the Malko Competition in Denmark, and has had remarkable success working with young musicians, guest conducting orchestras at top conservatories and summer programs including Tanglewood, Round Top, the National Repertory Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute, Interlochen, and Brevard Music Center. Falletta has held the positions of Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Phoenix Symphony, Music Director of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of the Denver Chamber Orchestra and The Women’s Philharmonic. She received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes School of Music, and her master’s and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School. When not on the podium, JoAnn enjoys playing classical guitar, writing, cycling, yoga and is an avid reader. JoAnn Falletta Conductor Condensed Biography Multiple Grammy Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Connie and Marc Jacobson Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center and Conductor Laureate of the Hawaii Symphony. She was recently named one of the “Fifty Great Conductors”, past and present, by Gramophone Magazine, and is hailed for her work as a conductor, recording artist, audience builder and champion of American composers.
Falletta has conducted many of the world’s finest orchestras, including over a hundred orchestras in North America across 46 states. Internationally, Falletta has conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, and South America, including recent and upcoming concerts in France, England, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Brazil, Croatia and Mexico. Her recent and upcoming North American guest conducting includes the National Symphony, the orchestras of Dallas, Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, Milwaukee, Calgary, Vancouver, Quebec, Tulsa, Charleston, Rochester and at premier conservatories including Julliard, Curtis, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, the Manhattan School, Mannes and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. With a discography of over 135 titles, Falletta is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual Grammy Awards, including the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance as conductor of the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua. In 2019, she won her first individual Grammy Award as conductor of the London Symphony in the Best Classical Compendium category for Spiritualist, her fifth world premiere recording of the music of Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan received two Grammys in 2008. Her 2020 Naxos recording of orchestral music of Florent Schmitt with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award. Her upcoming releases for Naxos with the BPO include The French in Spain (Ravel, Ibert and Debussy), Stravinsky Fairy Tales and Symphonic Dances (Bartok, Copland and Hindemith). In early 2024, Naxos released the BPO’s recording of orchestral works of Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály-Hary Janos, Symphony and Summer Evening, Alexander Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy and Symphony No. 2, and a recording of two concertos by award-winning American composers, Danny Elfman’s violin concerto Eleven Eleven performed by Sandy Cameron and Adolphus Hailstork’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Stewart Goodyear, as well as a recording of works by Copland, Creston, Kay and Piston with the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic and soloists Anna Mattix (oboe) and Tim McAllister (saxophone). Her most recent recording is an album of the music of Danny Elfman with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on Sony.
Falletta is a strong advocate and mentor for young professional and student musicians. She has led seminars for women conductors for the League of American Orchestras and established a unique collaboration between the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Mannes College of Music to give up-and-coming conductors professional experience with a leading American orchestra. She served on the jury of the Malko Competition in Denmark and has had great success working with young musicians, guest conducting orchestras at top conservatories and summer programs including Tanglewood, Round Top, the National Repertory Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute, Interlochen, and Brevard Music Center, and as Artistic Advisor at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Falletta has held the positions of Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Phoenix Symphony, Music Director of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of the Denver Chamber Orchestra and The Women’s Philharmonic. After earning her bachelor’s degree at Mannes, Falletta received master’s and doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School. When not on the podium, JoAnn enjoys playing classical guitar, writing, cycling, yoga and is an avid reader.
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