Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Guided by internationally renowned Music Director Fabio Luisi, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra delivers uplifting, entertaining musical experiences and innovative, enriching educational opportunities.

Fabio Luisi

GRAMMY® Award winner Fabio Luisi launched his tenure as Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) at the start of the 2020/21 season. In January 2021, the DSO and Luisi announced an extension of the Music Director’s contract through the 2028/29 season. A maestro of major international standing, the Italian conductor is in his seventh season as Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and in September 2022, he assumed the role of Principal Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. He previously served for six seasons as Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and nine seasons as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera.

Luisi’s 2023/24 season with the Dallas Symphony will feature monumental works including Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Brahms’s A German Requiem and Liszt’s A Faust Symphony. He will also lead three world premieres: Jessie Montgomery’s Snapshots, Xi Wang’s Year 2020 (featuring Tine Thing Helseth, trumpet, and Karen Gomyo, violin) and Anna Clyne’s Piano Concerto (featuring Jeremy Denk). Luisi’s season will conclude with the first two operas in Wagner’s epic Ring cycle, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. The DSO and Luisi will continue the complete cycle in the 2024/25 season, marking the first time an American orchestra has mounted the full Ring in recent history.

In October 2023, Luisi and the DSO will release the second of their recording projects, Brahms’s Third and Fourth Symphonies. Available through the DSO’s in-house label, DSO Live, this album joins the Fall 2022 release of Brahms’s First and Second Symphonies to complete the cycle. During the 2023/24 season, the DSO and Luisi will record two projects for future album release – Franz Schmidt’s epic The Book with Seven Seals and Saint-Saens’s Symphony No. 3, “Organ” which features the mighty Lay Family Concert Organ.

Other highlights of the 2023/24 season include his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, concerts with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, his return to the podium of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra followed by a tour in Japan and Korea and several concerts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo). With the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, he will embark on a new recording series of the complete music of Aleksandr Scriabin for the renowned Deutsche Grammophon label in addition to the season concerts in Copenhagen.

The conductor received his first GRAMMY® Award in March 2013 for his leadership of the last two operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, when Deutsche Grammophon’s DVD release of the full cycle, recorded live at the Met, was named Best Opera Recording of 2012. In February 2015, the Philharmonia Zurich launched its Philharmonia Records label with three Luisi recordings: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, a double album surveying Wagner’s Preludes and Interludes, and a DVD of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Subsequent releases have included a survey of Rachmaninov’s Four Piano Concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with soloist Lise de la Salle, and a rare recording of the original version of Bruckner’s monumental Symphony No. 8. Luisi’s extensive discography also includes rare Verdi operas (Jérusalem, Alzira and Aroldo), Salieri’s La locandiera, Bellini’s I puritani and I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elīna Garanča for Deutsche Grammophon, and the symphonic repertoire of Honegger, Respighi and Liszt. He has recorded all the symphonies and the oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln by neglected Austrian composer Franz Schmidt, several works by Richard Strauss for Sony Classical, and an award – winning account of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Born in Genoa in 1959, Luisi began piano studies at the age of four and received his diploma from the Conservatorio Niccolò Paganini in 1978. He later studied conducting with Milan Horvat at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Graz. Named both Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana and Commendatore della Stella d’Italia for his role in promoting Italian culture abroad, in 2014 he was awarded the Grifo d’Oro, the highest honor given by the city of Genoa, for his contributions to the city’s cultural legacy. Off the podium, Luisi is an accomplished composer whose Saint Bonaventure Mass received its world premiere at St. Bonaventure University, followed by its New York City premiere in the MetLiveArts series, with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Chorus. As reported by the New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning and elsewhere, he is also a passionate maker of perfumes, which he produces in a one-person operation, FLPARFUMS.COM.

Helene Grimaud

Renaissance woman Hélène Grimaud is not just a deeply passionate and committed musical artist whose pianistic accomplishments play a central role in her life. She is a woman with multiple talents that extend far beyond the instrument she plays with such poetic expression and peerless technical control. The French artist has established herself as a committed wildlife conservationist, a compassionate human rights activist and as a writer.

Grimaud was born in 1969 in Aix-en-Provence and began her piano studies at the local conservatory with Jacqueline Courtin before going on to work with Pierre Barbizet in Marseille. She was accepted into the Paris Conservatoire at just 13 and won first prize in piano performance a mere three years later. She continued to study with György Sándor and Leon Fleisher until, in 1987, she gave her well-received debut recital in Tokyo. That same year, renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim invited her to perform with the Orchestre de Paris: this marked the launch of Grimaud’s musical career, characterised ever since by concerts with most of the world’s major orchestras and many celebrated conductors.

Between her debut in 1995 with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Claudio Abbado and her first performance with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur in 1999 – just two of many notable musical milestones – Grimaud made a wholly different kind of debut: in upper New York State she established the Wolf Conservation Center.

Her love for the endangered species was sparked by a chance encounter with a wolf in northern Florida; this led to her determination to open an environmental education centre. “To be involved in direct conservation and being able to put animals back where they belong,” she says, “there’s just nothing more fulfilling.” But Grimaud’s engagement doesn’t end there: she is also a member of the organisation Musicians for Human Rights, a worldwide network of musicians and people working in the field of music to promote a culture of human rights and social change.

For a number of years she also found time to pursue a writing career, publishing three books that have appeared in various languages. Her first, Variations Sauvages, appeared in 2003. It was followed in 2005 by Leçons particulières, and in 2013 by Retour à Salem, both semi-autobiographical novels.

It is, however, through her thoughtful and tenderly expressive music-making that Hélène Grimaud most deeply touches the emotions of audiences. Fortunately, they have been able to enjoy her concerts worldwide, thanks to the extensive tours she undertakes as a soloist and recitalist. A committed chamber musician, she has also performed at the most prestigious festivals and cultural events with a wide range of musical collaborators, including Sol Gabetta, Rolando Villazón, Jan Vogler, Truls Mørk, Clemens Hagen, Gidon Kremer, Gil Shaham and the Capuçon brothers. Her prodigious contribution to and impact on the world of classical music were recognised by the French government when she was admitted into the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (France’s highest decoration) at the rank of Chevalier (Knight).

Hélène Grimaud has been an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2002. Her recordings have been critically acclaimed and awarded numerous accolades, among them the Cannes Classical Recording of the Year, Choc du Monde de la musique, Diapason d’or, Grand Prix du disque, Record Academy Prize (Tokyo), Midem Classic Award and the Echo Klassik Award.

Her early recordings include Credo and Reflection (both of which feature a number of thematically linked works); a Chopin and Rachmaninov Sonatas disc; a Bartók CD on which she plays the Third Piano Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and Pierre Boulez; a Beethoven disc with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Vladimir Jurowski which was chosen as one of history’s greatest classical music albums in the iTunes “Classical Essentials” series; a selection of Bach’s solo and concerto works, in which she directed the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen from the piano; and a DVD release of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Claudio Abbado.

In 2010 Grimaud recorded the solo recital album Resonances, showcasing music by Mozart, Berg, Liszt and Bartók. This was followed in 2011 by a disc featuring her readings of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 19 and 23 as well as a collaboration with singer Mojca Erdmann in the same composer’s Ch’io mi scordi di te?. Her next release, Duo, recorded with cellist Sol Gabetta, won the 2013 Echo Klassik Award for “chamber recording of the year”, and her album of the two Brahms piano concertos, the First recorded with Andris Nelsons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Second with Nelsons and the Vienna Philharmonic, appeared in September 2013.

This was followed by Water (January 2016), a live recording of performances from tears become… streams become…, the critically-acclaimed large-scale immersive installation at New York’s Park Avenue Armory created by Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon in collaboration with Grimaud. Water features works by nine composers: Berio, Takemitsu, Fauré, Ravel, Albéniz, Liszt, Janáček, Debussy and Nitin Sawhney, who wrote seven short Water Transitions for the album as well as producing it. April 2017 then saw the release of Perspectives, a two-disc personal selection of highlights from her DG catalogue, including two “encores” – Brahms’s Waltz in A flat and Sgambati’s arrangement of Gluck’s “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” – previously unreleased on CD/via streaming.

Grimaud’s next album, Memory, was released in September 2018. Exploring music’s ability to bring the past back to life, it comprises a selection of evanescent miniatures by Chopin, Debussy, Satie and Valentin Silvestrov which, in the pianist’s own words, “conjure atmospheres of fragile reflection, a mirage of what was – or what could have been”.

For her most recent recording, The Messenger, Grimaud created an intriguing dialogue between Silvestrov and Mozart. “I was always interested in couplings that were not predictable,” she explained, “because I feel as if certain pieces can shed a special light on to one another.” Together with the Camerata Salzburg, she recorded Mozart’s Piano Concerto K466 and Silvestrov’s Two Dialogues with Postscript and The Messenger – 1996, of which she also created a solo version. Mozart’s Fantasias K397 and K475 complete the programme. The Messenger was released in October 2020.

Hélène Grimaud began the 2022-23 season with a recital of her Memory recording in Santa Fe’s Lensic Performaing Arts Center. Her forthcoming plans include performances of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor with the Dallas Symphony Orchesta and Fabio Luisi (October), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Otto Tausk (November), and St Louis Symphony Orchestra and Stephane Deneve (January); Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Louis Langree (October); finishing the year with a recital at Carnegie Hall (December). The new year starts with her European tour with Camerata Salzburg in Ludwigshafen, Salzburg, and Turin (February). Followed by recitals in Vienna, Luxembourg, Munich, Berlin, and London (March-May) to name a few.

Hélène Grimaud is undoubtedly a multi-faceted artist. Her deep dedication to her musical career, both in performances and recordings, is reflected and reciprocally amplified by the scope and depth of her environmental, literary and artistic interests.