Edo de Waart

Edo de Waart was principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra from 1989 to 2005. He has been the principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra since 2005. He was principal conductor of deFilharmonie in Antwerp, artistic director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and artistic partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minnesota. He was previously artistic director and principal conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Edo de Waart is a regular guest with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Washington National Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Recently he has been invited back to the orchestras of Sydney and Melbourne.

Guest at the opera
As an opera conductor Edo de Waart celebrated successes with a broad and varied repertoire in the world's major opera houses. He has conducted at the Nikikai Opera, the Geneva Opera, Opéra de Bastille, Santa Fe Opera and The Metropolitan Opera. In the 2009-10 season, he returned to The Met for performances of Der Rosenkavalier, which were widely acclaimed. He conducted a performance of Duke Bluebeard's Castle with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and The Rake's Progress with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

CD recordings
Edo de Waart's extensive CD catalogue includes recordings for Philips, Virgin, EMI, Telarc and RCA. With the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra he recorded orchestral works by Rachmaninov, overtures from Wagner operas and adaptations of these by Henk de Vlieger.

History
After studying oboe, piano and orchestral conducting in Amsterdam, Edo de Waart became principal oboist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 1964 he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York, after which he was appointed assistant to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic for one year. After that he became assistant conductor to Bernard Haitink at the Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 1967, he was appointed guest conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. From 1973 to 1979 he was artistic director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
After his debut with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1975, he was asked to be their guest conductor. In 1977 he was appointed artistic director - a position he held until 1985. In 1986 he became artistic director of the Minnesota Orchestra. In 1989 he returned to the Netherlands. Until December 2004 he was chief conductor of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1999 to 2002 he was chief conductor of the Netherlands Opera. From 1995 to 2004 he also held this position with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.