Alondra de la Parra - Conductor

BIOGRAPHY 2023/2024

Alondra de la Parra has conducted the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Verbier Festival Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

In April 2022, she was appointed principal guest conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, a position that marks a new chapter for the artist. The new position will see her leading the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano twice a season for the next two years. Her compelling musical insight and passion have made her a coveted artist throughout the world.

In the summer of 2022, Alondra de la Parra founded the first edition of festival PAAX GNP. In Mexico, the conductor welcomed well respected musicians from all over the world, such as Julian Prégardien, Guy Braunstein, Nemanja Radulovic, Pacho Flores and Aleksey Igudesman, with whom she shared the stage in five concerts.

She co-created “The Silence of Sound” a multidisciplinary performance including a philharmonic orchestra, a clown actress and an elaborate video installation appeals to audiences of all ages, that cannot be classified in the category of opera, symphony concert or musical, but represents a new form of musical experience. The project will be presented for the first time on tour in Mexico and Spain in the 2022-2023 season.

In celebration of the history of friendship between Mexico and Spain, the director recorded Olé México. It is a symphonic concert of popular Mexican songs in the voice of three great singers: Buika, Pitingo and Lila Downs.

Another highlight of the 2022-2023 season is her Brahms cycle with the Münchner Symphoniker. Alondra de la Parra presents all Brahms symphonies embedded in an exciting concert program on four evenings.

She is a regular guest of the Royal Opera House in London. In fact, she is the first Mexican conductor to perform there. This season Alondra de la Parra conducted the acclaimed world premiere of Joby Talbot’s ballet “Like Water for Chocolate” for the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House London (Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon). She will now bring this production to California and the Metropolitan Opera together with the American Ballet.

Engagements with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester, the Orchester de la Suisse Romande, the Orchester Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, the DR SymfoniOrkestret, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai Torino and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia round off her season.

In 2017, Alondra de la Parra became the first ever Music Director of an Australian orchestra when she took up the position with Queensland Symphony Orchestra, a position she held until 2019.

As a pioneer in the field of digital formats, Alondra de la Parra regularly appears in the music format “Musica Maestra”, having recorded by now more than 60 episodes. Since July 2017, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle has been broadcasting a specially created series of web videos and television programs in which the conductor appears as the protagonist and reporter. In the past three seasons she has interviewed guests such as John Malkovich, Jan Lisiecki, Gautier Capuçon, Zenaida Yanowsky and filmed in the most important international cultural venues.

Highlights of previous seasons include Carlos Padrissa’s highly acclaimed staged production of Mozart Thamos, King in Egypt with Camerata Salzburg and the theatre collective La Fura dels Baus at the 2019 Salzburg Mozartwoche (repeated at the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence), concerts with Orchestre de Paris (broadcast live on ARTE), Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Bamberger Symphoniker, Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester, Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Verbier Festival Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, and a live orchestral performance of the film West Side Story to a capacity 10,000 audience at Mexico’s Auditorio Nacional.

Whilst studying piano and conducting at the Manhattan School of Music, Alondra founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (POA) in 2004, aged 23. Her intention was to create an orchestra which serves as a platform to showcase young performers and composers from the Americas, placing music from the Americas amongst standard orchestral repertoire. Their first recording, Mi Alma Mexicana (My Mexican Soul) was released by Sony Classical to celebrate Mexico’s Bicentennial Anniversary. It reached the top 10 of the US Billboard Classical Charts and was the first ever classical recording in Mexico to achieve platinum sales, which it did within only 2 months.

Status: October 2023