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"There is no 'perfect' in music. If I were ever to come off the stage feeling that the performance could not have been better, it would then be time to quit."
Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, and Artistic Consultant to the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting and is active as a composer, author, and educator.
To celebrate his 80th birthday, he is returning to orchestras he led as Music Director, including the DSO, ONL, SLSO, and National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC). Additional 2024–25 highlights include the New York Philharmonic, Nashville Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, Eastman Philharmonia, National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland), Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Kristiansand Symfoniorkester, Jersusalem Symphony, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Moreover, his composition Schubertiade: An Orchestral Fantasy and his arrangement of Scarlatti keyboard sonatas are receiving world premieres this season.
Slatkin has received six Grammy awards and 35 nominations. Naxos recently reissued Vox audiophile editions of his SLSO recordings featuring the works of Gershwin, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev. Other Naxos recordings include Slatkin Conducts Slatkin—a compilation of pieces written by generations of his family—as well as works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Berlioz, Copland, Borzova, McTee, and Williams.
A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has been awarded the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, and the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton. He received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business (2012), which was followed by Leading Tones (2017) and Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century (2021). His latest books are Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century (Rowman & Littlefield, spring 2024) and Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Nineteenth Century (fall 2024), comprising essays that supplement the score-study process.
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