Lawrence Foster

The American conductor Lawrence Foster was born in 1941 in Los Angeles. His parents came from Romania, and Foster consequently has a special fondness for the music of that country – in particular for the oeuvre of George Enescu, whose complete orchestral works he has performed; he has also recorded many of these. Following studies with Fritz Zweig, Foster launched his career as conductor of the San Francisco Ballet; he went on to acquire formative experiences as assistant to Zubin Mehta at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As winner of the Koussevitzky Prize, which he received in 1966 in Tanglewood, he soon embarked on his first positions as conductor. From 1971 to 1979 Foster served as Music Director of the Hous-ton Symphony Orchestra, and from 1980 to 1990 he led the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and also helmed the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. After four years as head of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, in 1994 he became Music Director of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona, and starting in 2002 he took over leadership of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon for 11 years. Since the beginning of the 2012-13 season, Foster has been serving as Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, with which he performs operas as well as concert programs. In addition, he has been involved in the educational arena as director of the Aspen Music Festival, with which he was associated from 1990 to 1998. Foster has performed as a guest conductor with numerous renowned orchestras; his schedule for the 2013-14 season includes engagements with the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and the MDR Symphony Orchestra, as well as opera performances at San Francisco Opera and Hamburg Staats-
oper. Foster received the Orfée d’Or in 2013 for his recording of d’Indy’s L’Étranger.

October 2013