




Pablo Heras-Casado
“Heras-Casado came roaring in like a lion. There was a thunderous physicality to his conducting that I don’t recall having witnessed before, a readiness to unleash the full sonic resources of the orchestra and to marshal them in the service of full-blooded accounts of music both old and new.”
(SFGate)
“A libero, with enormous musical-rhetorical versatility. Equally at home in the opera pit and on the concert podium, he is well-versed in the German as well as in the Italian, French, and Spanish repertoire” reads the speech for his selection as Best Conductor 2025 (Oper! Awards). Pablo Heras-Casado is one of the most sought-after and versatile conductors worldwide, impressing with his stylistic range from historically informed performance to contemporary music. Since his outstanding debut at the Bayreuth Festival with Parsifal (2023), he has also been considered one of the leading Wagner interpreters of his generation.
International Career
Heras-Casado works regularly with the world’s leading orchestras, including Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Staatskapelle Berlin, Munich Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Filarmonica della Scala, Cleveland Orchestra, and NHK Symphony Orchestra. His other engagements include appearances with Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2025/26, Heras-Casado conducts Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, Bamberger Symphoniker, Orchester der Oper Zürich, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
Opera Engagements
Pablo Heras-Casado has established himself as one of the leading Wagner conductors of his time, particularly through his acclaimed debut at the Bayreuth Festival with Wagner’s Parsifal in 2023 and his successful return the following years. Parsifal is planned once more for 2026, followed by a new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen in 2028. Heras-Casado is a regular guest at the Wiener Staatsoper, where he has conducted the Monteverdi trilogy (L’Orfeo, L’incoronazione di Poppea, Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria), Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, and Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre. In 2025/26, he returns to Vienna for a new production of La clemenza di Tito and revivals of Le Grand Macabre and Wagner’s Ring cycle. Having launched a new Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Opéra National de Paris in January 2025 with Das Rheingold, Heras-Casado returns in 2025/26 to conduct Die Walküre and Siegfried. He also led Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Teatro Real in Madrid, where he was Principal Guest Conductor until July 2025.
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Discography and Awards
Heras-Casado’s extensive discography with Harmonia Mundi includes an ongoing series titled Die Neue Romantik, featuring works by Mendelssohn and Schubert with Freiburger Barockorchester, and most recently Bruckner’s Symphony No.4 with Anima Eterna Brugge. Other releases include a series for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, works by Manuel de Falla, Debussy, all symphonies by Schumann and Bartók, and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps. In 2024, the recording of the successful Bayreuth Parsifal production was released on CD and video by Deutsche Grammophon. His work has been honored with numerous awards, including two German Record Critics’ Awards, two Diapason d’Or, and a Latin Grammy. He was named 2025 Best Conductor by the Oper! Awards and 2024 Conductor of the Year by Opernwelt. In 2025, he also received the Premios Ópera XXI: Premio a la Dirección Musical. He is an Honorary Ambassador and recipient of the Golden Medal of Merit from the City Council of Granada, as well as an Honorary Citizen of the Province of Granada. In 2018, he was awarded the title Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic.
Support for Young Musicians
Alongside his extensive concert and opera activities, Heras-Casado is deeply committed to supporting young musicians. He regularly leads youth ensembles and music projects around the world, including the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Juilliard School Orchestra, and the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España. In November 2025, he conducts masterclasses at La Maestra Academy.
Contacts
Jasper Parrott Executive Chairman HP Group & Associated Companies Teodora Masi Associate Director, Artist Management
worldwide general management
Teodora Masi Associate Director, Artist Management
worldwide general management
Season Highlights
Mozartsaal, Rosengarten
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ANTON BRUCKNER: Mass No. 3 in F minor
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
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Götterdämmerung:
1. Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt
2. Siegfrieds Trauermarsch
3. “Starke Scheite”
SOFIA GUBAIDULINA: Viola Concerto
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
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SOFIA GUBAIDULINA: Viola Concerto
Internationale Barocktage Melk
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CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH: Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: Magnificat
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Bayreuther Festspielhaus
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RICHARD WAGNER: Parsifal
“The musical side, with the historically informed Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the unrivalled female voices of the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin under the musical direction of Pablo Heras-Casado, is a dream that will delight children and adults alike. Fluid tempos, unbridled enthusiasm, and chamber-like transparency are just three of the characteristics that make this audiophile recording a truly magical experience. Never before have so many details of the magnificent instrumentation been heard […], all garnished with the utmost charm, tone painting, and articulatory verve. […] An album that brings unbridled joy and puts you in a great mood. But warn your neighbours: during the wedding march or the lively finale, the temptation to jump around the apartment is great.“
“The Spaniard has previously attracted attention with Wagner, Schumann and early music, but not with Mahler. Now we know that he has a lot to say here as well: […] One would like to hear more Mahler from Heras-Casado. It is wrong to leave such monumental works (such as those by Bruckner) predominantly to the 60-plus generation of conductors, who too often place the serene and Weltschmerz in the foreground.”
“If a single adjective had to describe Heras-Casado’s “Rheingold”, it would be: flowing. Which is not to say that the work ripples along. On the contrary: springy rhythms, concise articulation and differentiated dynamics in the mostly quiet range create a tension in these 145 minutes that never lets up — …”
“And the other conductorial stroke of luck on the Green Hill is Pablo Heras-Casado: fluid, yet never rushed tempi in “Parsifal”, an organically flowing orchestral sound; a flexibility of timing oriented towards word meanings and musical climaxes. Wagner works with the musical techniques of trance rituals: the definition of temporal and tonal reference systems, the centers of gravity of which are then gradually shifted: time stretches, fundamental time stretches, fundamental tones shift. Heras-Casado does not demonstrate these techniques, he applies them subtly, with an effect aimed at the subconscious. You immerse yourself in listening and completely forget yourself.”
“György Ligeti’s “Le Grand Macabre”, for the first time at the Vienna State Opera: unanimous applause for a musically brilliant performance under Pablo Heras-Casado.”
“In Vienna, Pablo Heras-Casado holds all the strings, ropes and occasionally choppy cables of the score together perfectly, the music is brilliant.”
“Pablo Heras-Casado, conductor of “Parsifal”, enjoyed great approval in the opening premiere, who […] succeeded immediately in presenting the many orchestral highlights with the fabulously disposed orchestra as if on a show run”
“Played with the high degree of rhythmic control and technical perfection that has long become the norm in this work (…) Heras-Casado offers much more than maths, including sinuous, wailing woodwinds”
“Elegance and transparency aren’t adjectives you’d necessarily associate with this score, but Heras-Casado supplies both in spades, and the pay-offs are fascinating, revealing a wealth of inner detail that often gets eclipsed elsewhere.”
“Gripping from start to finish: that was Thursday night’s Dallas Symphony Orchestra concert. One of the most impressive guest conductors in the 2017 – 18 season, the Spaniard Pablo Heras-Casado was back on the podium. Again, he impressed with deeply musical performances, but they were exciting, too. (…) It was good to have Heras-Casado back on the Meyerson podium. I hope he becomes a regular.”
“The beautiful interpretation of Berlioz’s Requiem that made the Philharmonie of Paris vibrate last week is rich in lessons. The first merit of Casado [was that he] remembered that the thunderous bursts that made Berlioz’s Requiem famous represent only about ten minutes out of the ninety of a work whose general tone is rather of a collected fervor. The conductor does not take advantage of the more than 200 executants he has on hand to delve into the colossal or the grandiloquent. His reading remains transparent and developed, with a clarity to which contribute the strings playing with little vibrato.”
“Several elements combine to make this reading of Pablo Heras-Casado [of Berlioz’s Requiem], one of the highlights of this year Berlioz. The great hall of the Philharmonie, first of all (…). To this is added all the science of the Spanish leader in the field of opera, constantly concerned with balance; he proposes in this interpretation a vision in total adequacy with the wishes of the composer, mixing a theatricality without excess to a science of orchestral colours, magnified by his precise and committed clear direction.”
“The most impressive work emerged in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 (…) Guest conductor Pablo Heras-Casado conceived an interpretation that made about as strong a case for this disarming composition as one might imagine (…) Thanks to the driving force and urgency of Heras-Casado’s reading, the motifs of the first movement made coherent sense. (…) Shaping a gorgeous Tchaikovsky melody can be more challenging than is apparent, and Heras-Casado showed how it’s done in the second movement. The grace and tenderness he brought to lyric themes made a nocturne of the piece.”
“The musical results were more successful than the program would indicate, with (…) conductor Pablo Heras-Casado making his most impressive CSO podium appearance to date. Relaxed yet in control, the Spanish conductor drew impassioned playing throughout yet skillfully tempered balances and refused to go over the top with volume or speed.”
“A key role was Pablo Heras-Casado, which is becoming more and more a formidable conductor who seems to be able to perform every style period. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra played under his expressive gestures with great feeling, found the Russian soul and hit the score.”
“From beginning to end, Heras-Casado had Mussorgsky’s colossal score in a firm grasp, delivering a deeply passionate performance underpinned by the cleanest of rhythms.”
“Heras-Casado brings Boulezian analytical textures to the Saint Sébastien fragments and La Mer, but his emotional engagement in this music is far less restrained. The playing is magical.”
“As guest conductor Pablo Heras-Casado raised his long arms to cue the first downbeat of the Brahms Symphony No. 1 on Friday night at Davies Hall, the entire San Francisco Symphony ensemble seemed to take and hold a collective breath. Then, in a kind of ferocious exhalation, the musicians entered the timpani-studded thicket at the outset of the piece. That opening Allegro — indeed the entire symphony — drove on with an oxygen-infused, organic inevitability.”
“At its best, the Philharmonia, guided by the esteemed Pablo Heras-Casado, certainly delivered superb performances. […] Heras-Casado just went with the flow, conjuring up one of the most refreshing, convincing and wettest interpretations [of Debussy’s La Mer] I’ve heard for some time. He was equally on the ball in Ravel’s lovely Mother Goose suite, shaping the miniature sonorities with such exquisite poise that I curled up in bliss.” ****
“Pablo Heras-Casado and Pierre-Laurent Aimard were captivating in an outstanding programme of late 19th- and early 20th-century French music […] The playing was ravishing throughout” ****
“Freiburg’s all-Mendelssohn programme had the translucency and energy of a Turner watercolour. Heras-Casado’s spacious reading of The Hebrides was sensitive to the stillness in Mendelssohn’s writing (…)” *****
“Pablo Heras-Casado (…) led the ensemble with a consistently sophisticated vision.”
“With the gentlest of rhythmic swells in the violins, (…) a subtly revisionist account formed in the quietly authoritative hands of Pablo Heras-Casado. (…) Conductor and orchestra have recorded the symphonies together – the CD of this programme is newly available on Harmonia Mundi – and their account of the “Reformation” was no less illuminated than the Concerto by mutual trust and understanding.”
“Pablo Heras-Casado whips the Orchestre de Paris (…) into a frenzy; his attention to detail, and the thrilling level of excellence, mirror what we see on the stage.” *****
“Pablo Heras-Casado chose a delicate gesture to imprint a new breath on this music, displaying a strong knowledge of the style and spirit of Monteverdi’s music.”
“Heras-Casado, beaming throughout, did not need a score and the orchestra dutifully followed his every gesture. Heras-Casado injected the piece with infectious humour and conducted with verve. (…) His fiery temperament blends with an amiable countenance, sound technique, a broad repertoire and plenty of charisma – could this be the perfect mix to ignite staid Zurichers?”
“The rest of the program was just the latest reminder of what a vivid and resourceful conductor Heras-Casado is. (…) the first major American orchestra to snap him up as music director will have hit the jackpot. … This was exactly the kind of performance that makes a conductor sound like a wizard.”
“One of the most versatile conductors of his generation … Heras-Casado sustained the narrative through slow, quiet sections that otherwise would have had dancers to help carry them. Seamlessly navigating the work’s many transitions, the conductor’s conjuring of orchestral mood and color was so pictorially communicative, one could almost see Prince Ivan encountering the enchanting Firebird for the first time.”
“In his Caramoor debut, maestro Pablo Heras-Casado led a vigorous, forward-moving performance that coaxed taut, nuanced playing from the ever-splendid Orchestra of St. Luke’s and committed singing from the principals and chorus.”
“Heras-Casado is a vigorous, expressive podium artist, and his command of rhythm and dynamics was apparent throughout the evening’s lineup of works by Beethoven, Biber, Haydn and Rameau. Wednesday’s performance in Davies Symphony Hall found the conductor in top form, with especially persuasive results in the second half’s superb reading of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major.”