The Houston Symphony has appointed Chilean conductor and pianist Gonzalo Farias as the orchestra’s Assistant Conductor, effective at the start of the 2023-24 season this September. Farias was the winner of an audition process, which included a video submission round and a final in-person conducting round held in May.
According to a press release, Farias’ duties will include conducting the orchestra in various programs, including Education, Family, Community, and Summer concerts, as well as covering for guest conductors and acting as assistant to Music Director Juraj Valčuha. The Houston Symphony’s previously appointed Assistant Conductor was Yue Bao.
Farias is Associate Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony and Associate Conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony. His previous positions have included Assistant Conductor of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra under JoAnn Falletta’s leadership.
As former Music Director of the Joliet Symphony Orchestra, Farias created programs that engaged Hispanic residents of the greater Chicago area “with pre-concert lectures, Latin-based repertoire, and a unique side-by-side bilingual narration of Bizet’s Carmen,” as described in his bio.
Gonzalo Farias was born in Santiago de Chile, where he began his piano studies at age five. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the P.C. University of Chile, and then continued his graduate piano studies at the New England Conservatory as a full-scholarship student of Wha-Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. He has won first prize at the Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition and prizes at the Maria Canals and Luis Sigall Piano Competitions. As a conductor, Mr. Farias attended the University of Illinois working with Donald Schleicher, the Peabody Conservatory with Marin Alsop, worked privately with the late Otto-Werner Mueller, and studied under the guidance of Larry Rachleff for several years.
Gonzalo Farias’ website
With extensive training, experience, and accolades earned in Chile, the U.S., and Europe, Farias was the recipient of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conducting Fellowship for two seasons, during which he was mentored by Marin Alsop. In 2020, he was selected for the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, considered a significant showcase for young emerging conductors sponsored by the League of American Orchestras.
Farias’ bio states that he has a “fond love for piano, chamber, and contemporary music” and is a “passionate reader of second-order cybernetics as a way to help understand how complex systems organize, coordinate, and interconnect with one another.” In addition, he is a practitioner of Zen Buddhism.
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