Lawrence Foster
©Photo: Marc Ginot

Lawrence Foster

Conductor
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“Lawrence Foster seems to have been put on this planet to conduct Enescu’s music. He is clearly a true believer and he understands every technical nuance and every expressive twist and turn”.

(The Telegraph)

Music Director l’Opéra de Marseille
Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra

Lawrence Foster celebrates his seventh year as Music Director of Opéra de Marseille in the 2019/20 season, as well as his first as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Known for his exhilarating and expressive performances in a wide range of music, he enjoys a major career spanning the US, Europe and Asia. As a champion of the music of Enescu, his interpretations are renowned for their faithfulness to the score: ​“Lawrence Foster seems to have been put on this planet to conduct Enescu’s music. He is clearly a true believer and he understands every technical nuance and every expressive twist and turn” The Telegraph.

He begins his tenure with the National Polish Radio Symphony at the prestigious Enescu Festival, performing music by Adrian Pop, Chopin and Lutosławski. During the season he conducts the complete Schumann symphonies, the piano concertos of Liszt, Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette and a concert performance of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole. He takes part in Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with the Third and Ninth symphonies, and conducts repertoire ranging from Vivaldi, Mozart and Mendelssohn to Tchaikovsky, Enescu and Bartók. He also conducts Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in a gala celebrating the 60th anniversary of Debüt im Deutschlandfunk Kultur, and Luzerner Sinfonieorchester in a Saint-Saëns Festival, featuring all the composer’s piano concertos.

Foster’s opera season opens at Opéra de Marseille with Die Zauberflöte. As a guest conductor he returns to Oper Frankfurt for Britten’s Peter Grimes and to Opéra de Monte-Carlo for Kurt Weill’s Street Scene. He has conducted in major opera houses around the world, with highlights including Troilus and Cressida at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, recorded for EMI, the first performance of Berg’s Lulu at Houston Opera, Enescu’s Oedipe at the Deutsche Oper, also recorded for EMI, and the opening performance of the newly created Los Angeles Opera with Plácido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes in Verdi’s Otello.

Following his successful ten-year tenure as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, he now serves as its Conductor Laureate. He toured extensively with the Orchestra, and their discography together includes a number of recordings for Pentatone Classics, including highly acclaimed recordings of Verdi’s Otello and violin works by Bruch, Chausson and Korngold with Arabella Steinbacher. He has also held music directorships with the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Houston Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier and the Aspen Festival Music School. 

He has worked with orchestras including Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Copenhagen Phil, Helsinki Philharmonic and Czech Philharmonic orchestras, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini of Parma, among others.

In addition to recordings with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, he has received praise for a number of recordings with Pentatone including the early symphonies of Schubert with the Copenhagen Philharmonic, Strauss’ Zigeunerbaron and Die Fledermaus with NDR Radiophilharmonic, and the Martinů Double Concertos.

Born in Los Angeles to Romanian parents, Foster served as Artistic Director of the Georg Enescu Festival from 1998 to 2001. In 2003 he was decorated by the Romanian President for services to Romanian Music.

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Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster

“Szmon Nehring and the Polish National Radio Orchestra (…) were helped by the clear authoritative conducting of Lawrence Foster, the orchestra’s new Principal, who – unlike most of the other conductors on the podium here – truly listens to where the soloist is leading. Foster (…) is a conductor who deserves a far more glittering reputation than he has. There are very few of his generation still conducting who have the calm perception that he brings to all his music making.”

(Present Arts, September 2019)

“We must salute the magnificent work of Maestro Lawrence Foster [with Orchestre de l’Opéra de Marseille in Mozarts’ The Magic Flute], who left his mark on the musical score. Far from giving in to the current fashion that wants to play fast and strong, the maestro takes advantage of measured tempi that let the orchestra play and find that unity of sound that we notice in each sentence. Shades, phrasing, colours, support of the singers, everything is there in an impeccable style where everything is thought through.”

(GB Opera Magazine, September 2019)

“Lawrence Foster’s conducting is remarkably balanced and sounds just right. Despite his natural and overall relaxed approach as well as much warmth and refinement, Schubert’s music never loses its rhetoric force in these fine performances.”

(Pizzicato, March 2019)

“Incorporating his vast knowledge of the intricacies of each piece, Foster never lost control over the massive orchestra; at the same time, his passion for the music was conveyed through the fiery vigor of his conducting. <…> Despite the often-jarring tonal shifts, Foster guided the orchestra’s interpretation of each variation masterfully, effectively communicating each movement’s distinct character.” ‑Joshua Bell wows in Houston Symphony”

(The Rice Thresher, 2013)

“Guest conductor Lawrence Foster easily gained the large audience’s approval with his no-nonsense approach, as he had also done just the previous evening, when he easily led the phenomenal pianist Garrick Ohlsson and the orchestra through a sublime performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto”

(The Saratogian, August 2010)

“Foster clicked with the musicians of the Residentie Orkest. Having warmed up with ​“Le chasseur maudit’…Foster knew how to unite the musicians in one heartbeat. The performances of Faure’s ​‘Pelleas et Melisande and Debussy’s ​‘La mer’ proved that the rich tradition of the Residentie Orkest still is very much alive”

(Volkskrant, October 2010)

“Lawrence Foster conducts with the strength of those who know how to loosed the leash to let the music live. <…> The conductor intervenes just like a captain navigating amongst skiffs in order to organise this musical flow. It’s beautiful and exhilarating”

(Bachtrack, July 2018)

“The Orchestere Philharmonique de Marseille under the experiences Lawrence Foster is on splendid form, playing with tight ensemble, verve and colour.”

(MusicWeb International, July 2018)

“It was, however, a real pleasure to hear the score so lovingly conducted by Lawrence Foster, who drew warm French colors from the Orchestre PHilharmonique deRadio France. It was in the pit, rather than on the stage that the magic of Roussel’s work was best realised.”

(Opera News, June 2008)
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