Bio
ALASDAIRE NEALE, conductor
Alasdair Neale is Music Director of the Marin Symphony, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony and Principal Guest Conductor of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Neale’s appointment with the Marin Symphony, a position he has held since 2001, followed 12 years as Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. During that time he conducted both orchestras in hundreds of critically acclaimed concerts both here and abroad. In 1999, he substituted for an ailing Michael Tilson Thomas, conducting the San Francisco Symphony in widely praised performances of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in Germany. Under Mr. Neale’s direction, the Youth Orchestra became one of the finest young ensembles in the world, receiving consistent rave reviews for performances in San Francisco, as well as on tour in Amsterdam, Leipzig, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Dublin, Copenhagen, and Vienna.
In his many years as Music Director of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony in Idaho, Mr. Neale has propelled this festival to national status: it is now the largest privately funded free admission symphony in America.
Recent highlights of Mr. Neale’s guest conducting schedule include engagements with the Real Philharmonia de Galicia in Spain, the Nashville Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Portland Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Grant Park Music Festival, Manhattan School of Music and the Glen Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and his debut with the Toronto Symphony. In February, 2007, he replaced an indisposed Carlos Kalmar to lead the San Francisco Symphony in successful subscription performances. In March 2002, to enthusiastically positive reviews, he collaborated with director Peter Sellars and composer John Adams to open the Adelaide Festival with a production of the opera El Niño. In October 2002, Mr. Neale replaced an indisposed Edo de Waart at the last minute to conduct the Saint Louis Symphony in enormously successful performances of an all-Beethoven program. For the past ten seasons, through the 2010/2011 season, he served as Principal Guest conductor of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. He will return to that ensemble in the fall of 2011.
Alasdair Neale has guest conducted with numerous orchestras here and abroad, including: the New York Philharmonic, Saint Louis Symphony, Houston Symphony, Columbus Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Honolulu Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Nashville Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Hartford Symphony, Florida West Coast Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Sydney Symphony, l’Orchestre Métropolitan du Grand-Montréal, Radio Sinfonie Orchester Stuttgart, Auckland Philharmonia, Orchestra of St. Gallen (Switzerland), MDR Leipzig, NDR Hannover, Trondheim Symphony, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and at the Aspen Music Festival.
In April 1994, Mr. Neale conducted the San Francisco Symphony in the world premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Colored Field, featuring English horn player Julie Ann Giacobassi. Following those performances, Alasdair Neale, Ms. Giacobassi, and the San Francisco Symphony recorded Colored Field for Argo/Decca; the recording was released in February 1996 and was honored with the Diapason d’or award, conferred by the French music publication Diapason harmonie. In addition to his San Francisco Symphony recording, he can also be heard on New World Records conducting the ensemble Solisti New York in a recording of new flute concertos. During his years with the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra he made a number of recordings, including Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony and Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra.
In 1993, the American Symphony Orchestra League named him a Leonard Bernstein American Conducting Fellow, and he led the New Jersey Symphony in a concert at the League’s annual conference.
Alasdair Neale holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cambridge University and a Master’s from Yale University, where his principal teacher was Otto-Werner Mueller. He lives in San Francisco.
October 2011
Biography
KMI
