©Photo: Marc Ginot

Lawrence Foster

Conductor

Discography

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Lawrence Foster bio 2025-26 English

“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)

Lawrence Foster is known for his exhilarating and expressive performances across a wide range of repertoire, enjoying a major international career spanning the US, Europe, and Asia. Recognised as one of the most eminent conductors of Enescu’s music, Foster’s interpretations are celebrated for their faithfulness to the score and deep artistic devotion: “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.

For the 2025 – 2026 season, Lawrence Foster’s engagements include performances with the London Philharmonia alongside Evgeny Kissin, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest, the NCPA Orchestra in China, and a tour in Poland with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, among others. Foster will also return for concerts with the Polish National Radio Symphony, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo.

Following his tenures as Music Director of Opéra de Marseille and Artistic and Chief Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Foster continues to be in demand for both operatic and symphonic programmes. Recent and upcoming collaborations include performances of Brahms, Prokofiev, Enescu, Copland, Korngold, Kurt Weill, Beethoven, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Mahler, Berg, and Penderecki, with orchestras such as the Bruckner Orchester Linz, Würth Philharmonic Orchestra, and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, in addition to his regular collaborations with Opéra Marseille and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

A long-standing and iconic figure in the classical music world, Foster was awarded the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood in 1966, became assistant conductor to Zubin Mehta at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and chief guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969. He has since held music directorships with the Houston Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Montpellier, and the Aspen Music Festival and School, among many others.

Foster is particularly appreciated as an interpreter of the works of George Enescu and has made a comprehensive survey of commercial recordings of Enescu’s music. He served as artistic director of the George Enescu Festival from 1998 to 2001, reopening the doors of this great cultural event after the fall of communism in Romania. In 2023, Lawrence Foster was awarded the Romanian National Order of Merit, Commander, for his contribution to Romanian culture and the promotion of the music of Enescu.

With a discography of exceptional breadth and acclaim, Lawrence Foster has established himself as one of today’s most distinctive recording conductors. He has taken on works across the symphonic, concerto and operatic repertoire, winning both critical praise and awards. His recording of Enescu’s Oedipe (EMI) was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros in France.

In recent years he has recorded intensively for Pentatone, including Schumann’s symphonies, orchestral works by Kodály, Bartók and Ligeti, as well as concertos by Bruch, Korngold, Rachmaninov, Grieg and Chopin in collaboration with leading soloists. His Pentatone operatic projects include Othello, Madama Butterfly, Die Fledermaus, and La Fanciulla del West, among others.