Juraj Valčuha will become the Houston Symphony’s music director in 2022. Photo by Michael Breyer
“The Houston Symphony on Wednesday announced Juraj Valčuha as its next music director,” writes Andrew Dansby in Wednesday’s (7/14) Houston Chronicle. “Valčuha … served as music director of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples since 2016 and as first guest conductor of the Konzerthausorchester in Berlin. John Mangum, executive director and CEO of the Houston Symphony, sees in Valčuha, 45, an opportunity to continue the international and cross-generational reach of outgoing music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada…. ‘He’s interested in the composers of today, composers who represent the diversity of our city and country.’ … He is scheduled to be the guest conductor to close the season’s Classical Series [for] Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, ‘Choral,’ with the Houston Symphony Chorus next May…. Valčuha arrives having worked with the Houston Symphony … most recently … in March for a program that included Sinfonietta No. 1 by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2…. Valčuha … born in Bratislava, Slovakia … served as chief conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai [and] has led dozens of orchestras including … symphony orchestras in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, New York and other cities.”
