Andrés Orozco-Estrada has been appointed Music Director Designate of the Wiener Symphoniker as of the 2021-2022 season.

He will work with the orchestra already in the 2020-21 season as Music Director Designate. As successor to Philippe Jordan, he will then become the 16th Music Director of the tradition-steeped Viennese orchestra. The working relationship is initially planned to last five years. In addition to concerts in Vienna, Bregenz and on tour, Orozco-Estrada will direct the orchestra in opera performances and CD recordings

Andrés Orozco-Estrada says of his appointment: “For me, with their rich tradition, the Wiener Symphoniker are ambassadors of Viennese musical culture. I’m delighted to be able to help ensure the orchestra’s outstanding quality continues into the future and to take part in developing new projects. I have made it my mission to build an even closer connection to the Viennese public, to bring our music to as many people as possible and at the same time to promote the Wiener Symphoniker’s international presence! To conduct this outstanding orchestra from my musical hometown is powerful motivation for me in our work together, in which I’ll invest all my energy.”

“The Wiener Symphoniker are first and foremost a family. You can feel that in every concert; it’s what separates the musicians of the city of Vienna from many other elite orchestras”, comments Vienna’s City Councillor for Cultural Affairs, Andreas Mailath-Pokorny. “That’s why it’s an extremely promising sign that Andrés Orozco-Estrada is following the call of family and taking his rightful place in his adopted home city.”   

Johannes Neubert, Intendant of the Wiener Symphoniker, comments: “Andrés Orozco-Estrada is one of the leading conductors of his generation and we’re happy to have been able to secure his services. What especially connects us with him is the idea of further developing Viennese musical culture in a fresh and open way. Orozco-Estrada’s openness to new ideas and his stylistic versatility enable us to establish the Wiener Symphoniker even more powerfully as an innovative force from and for Vienna.” 

“In our concerts together in recent years, we’ve got to know Andrés Orozco-Estrada as one of the most exciting, versatile and inspiring conductors of our time,” says Orchestra Chairperson Thomas Schindl. “He knows the orchestra, its history and sound very well, not least because of the time he spent studying here in Vienna. It’s a source of great pleasure that we’ve managed to recruit Andrés Orozco-Estrada and that he’ll shape the artistic future of the Wiener Symphoniker with us. We’re eagerly looking forward to working together with our future Music Director.”

Orozco-Estrada made his debut with the Wiener Symphoniker in 2006 and has conducted the orchestra eight times since then – most recently in the Wiener Musikverein in October 2017. Another four concerts are planned together in the 2018-19 season: in addition to an orchestral concert at the Bregenz Festival, Orozco-Estrada will also conduct the three traditional New Year’s concerts in the Wiener Konzerthaus featuring Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. 

The 40-year old Andrés Orozco-Estrada was born in Medellín, Colombia, and trained in Vienna. Since the 2014-15 season he has been Chief Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Music Director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Moreover, the London Philharmonic Orchestra appointed him Principal Guest Conductor in September 2015. Previously he was Music Director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra from 2009 to 2015, where he developed a highly successful collaborative partnership. 

Andrés Orozco-Estrada has conducted many of Europe’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National de France, Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as well as major US orchestras in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. His first guest appearance at the Glyndebourne Festival was in summer 2014 with Don Giovanni, and after his electrifying debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2015 he returned there in 2016.